The point and purpose of having variable parking charges is so that folk use a parking space for as long as they’re willing to pay for it then move on, freeing it up:
Whether for 10 minutes or a whole day, it now costs a flat fee of €50 (£43) to park in certain streets in The Hague, including roads around the popular Scheveningen beach.
The pilot scheme in the Dutch city on the North Sea coast, which will last a year, aims to discourage tourists and visitors from blocking up the historic centre and seaside roads, particularly on sunny days.
Residents have for years complained that they cannot find a parking space in the centre of the city and at Scheveningen, which the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited on Thursday.
To try to change this, the city is making it as expensive to park for a quick stop as for a whole day.
That means that the price is the same for 11 minutes and 23 hours and 49 minutes. Reducing the incentive to free up parking space after it has been used for anything between 11 minutes and 23 hours and whatever minutes.
The incentives there do the opposite of what is intended.
I’ve got to agree Tim. If I had to pay 50 euros for a parking spot, I’d be so pissed off that I’d leave it there as long as possible.
I went to the theatre in my local county town. They stung me £12 to park in an open air, empty car park from 18:30 to 22:30.
Because the show ended so late, public transport was not really practical as I would not have got home until well after midnight.
Suddenly I now have to think twice whether I want to go there in future to see a show at all, because prices will only increase…
Hmm, there seems to be an effort by politicians to stop us travelling and enjoying ourselves. I think COVID gave them too many ideas and they all want to be the CCP…
O/T But since it relates to tourism, this article proved some thought:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/06/coronation-sunak-scrap-the-tourist-tax/
More than 30,000 extra foreign visitors are thought to have descended on the capital, taking total numbers in the capital alone over the 100,000 mark, it is estimated…..What Black neglects to mention is that the celebrations are expected to pay for themselves many times over by delivering a £1bn boost to the economy.
Any Londoner knows that the vast majority of the tourist facing industry is foreign. Foreign owned businesses employing mostly foreign workers. OK, you can quibble about what exactly foreign means by talking about residence & possession of passports. But it’s quite easy for a foreign tourist to spend an entire week in London without commercially interacting with a single indigenous Brit. Maybe a dosser holding out a plastic cup & wouldn’t be too sure of that. Londoners like me regard tourists as a blight rather than a benefit. Tax the buggers boracic & maybe they’ll stay away. And the motley crew in the tourist industry might fuck off as well.
Dear Mr Worstall
Did you say ‘incentives matter’?
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/04/vale-liddell-coal-given-away-for-nothing-and-destroyed-by-predatory-capitalism-and-a-screwed-market/
DP
As I understand it, the original primary purpose of parking meters in the UK was to free up spaces for other users.
Think it started in the US – A marginal revolution post at some point. But yes….
Apparently the parking fine is € 72.90 plus the actual parking fee. This would incentivize me to park illegally. Say I got caught and fined every other time (very unlikely for a short visit), it still works out cheaper than paying to park.
Presumably residents get free parking, otherwise none of this makes sense. So what happens if you have a repairman visiting for a couple of hours – does he add the €50 parking charge to the bill? Or do residents get a limited number of visitor parking passes too? Either way, the problem is that the residents are paying too little.
‘https://joannenova.com.au/2023/04/vale-liddell-coal-given-away-for-nothing-and-destroyed-by-predatory-capitalism-and-a-screwed-market/’
Thank you DP. I’d wondered why they were so anxious to shut it down. I see the stupid regs provide the necessary incentive.
Seems like it’s a good thing that the Queensland government still owns its coal burners. And people know this. When the blackouts happen, it won’t be able to blame the wicked capitalists. And it’ll lose votes. (It never got mine in the first place, of course.)
@Ottokring. Same here. We don’t visit Manchester any more for an evening out for the same reasons.
Yes and No. Price matters, people use less of something that costs more and the value of a bulk resource is often less. Under this new scheme the value of a minute parking has gone down while the cost has stayed the same. This is a negative incentive as required by the vendor.