Park and Ride Charging Suppliers Day and Networking Event

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) operates 59 Park and Ride sites at 40 Rail and Metro locations throughout the West Midlands area, providing over 9 000 parking spaces for our customers who catch the train or tram. Parking at all the sites is free with the exception of Sutton Coldfield and Bromsgrove where we charge for parking. It is also intended to introduce parking charges for the soon to be built decked car park at Longbridge Park and Ride in South Birmingham. The WMCA is looking at options to provide a car park user charging mechanism that would initially work at the above 3 sites but could be scalable to roll out at any other or all of the WMCA Park and Ride sites across the region. We will therefore be holding a Park and Ride Charging Suppliers Day/Networking Event on the morning of Tuesday 22.1.2019 in Birmingham to discuss how our plans for Park and Ride charging might be best realised and help contribute towards the region’s growth and investment. At the session we hope to discuss how our plans for Park and Ride charging might be best realised and help contribute towards the region’s growth and investment in terms of transport infrastructure and connecting people to HS2, Rail, Metro, Sprint, Training, Jobs and Housing. Please note that parking enforcement at all of our Park and Ride sites is currently delivered through an existing 5 year contract which is currently in year 3. The key functionality for any charging system should include the following elements: — have a user experience that is as simple and easy to use and be as seamless as possible, — allow users to pay for car parking on site with ticketless payment system, — have options for management of user charging with or without an entrance/exit barrier system, — allow the system to be scalable and expanded very easily, — allow key performance indicators to be produced easily on the parking system on a location by location basis, — allow cashless payment whether with credit/debit cards or the WMCA promoted Swift payment system, — be fully integrated with the WMCA’s Swift smartcard system for payments/access using ITSO technology, — include the provision of ad-hoc security services (especially out of hours) to be SIA certified, — provision of Customer Help Points or other means of requesting assistance, — provision of ad-hoc cleaning and maintenance services (including emergency call-outs), — provision of electric vehicle charging points, — ability to monitor the number of spaces available and provide appropriate real time information. Responses received from the suppliers day/networking event could help the WMCA design specifications for future requirements.