The current frequent exposure of parking service charging chaos also shows that top-down guidance, regulation and supervision are far from enough.
"Why do I pay for 31 hours for parking for 2 minutes?"
According to the Yangtze Evening News Purple Cow News, some citizens of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province reported that local parking fees are mostly calculated by the hour, rather than taking a 15-minute unit, questioning the irrationality of the billing cycle. The reporter checked the website of the Changzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission and found that the first billing cycle of most parking lots in Changzhou is 2 hours, the price is mostly 5 yuan, and the subsequent billing cycle is 1 hour. The local response is that the relevant departments are studying the parking fee optimization plan, and the parking billing cycle is also within the scope of this optimization.
In today's life scenario, electronic billing in parking lots is popular, and there are no technical obstacles to setting a more reasonable billing cycle. The first billing cycle is based on 2 hours, which may not only artificially inflate parking fees, but also make people lack the motivation to stop and go and use parking spaces efficiently, to some extent, it has caused some inconvenience to the public.
In fact, not only the billing cycle needs to be optimized, but the problem of "high fees" for on-street parking is still the focus of public opinion. Following the widespread heated discussion about the "expensive parking" on the roadside in Nanning, Guangxi, according to media reports, the on-street parking fee standard for a type of road section in a county-level city is not only higher than the parking fees of major local shopping malls and hospitals, but also if the parking time is more than 4 hours during the day, the parking fee is more expensive than that of its provincial capital, which has also led to the phenomenon of some car owners "refusing to pay arrears".
For a county-level city, the income level of local residents is not high. And the excessive parking fee will obviously increase their living burden. Whether on-street parking should be charged in such counties and how the charging standards are set are issues worth paying attention to.
With the continuous increase in the number of motor vehicles, many cities have a situation of less land and more money, and urban parking services are also facing more and more severe challenges. Urban parking service is a complex project, which needs to be considered comprehensively, and the charging range, charging period, charging standard, charging object, etc. are scientifically and reasonably set. Especially in the setting of fee standards, it is necessary to fully consider the income level and living cost of local residents, rather than blindly pursuing high fees.
Charging appropriate fees for on-street parking owners is mainly to regulate the supply and demand of parking services, avoid the "tragedy of the commons" caused by free parking, and meet the growing expenditure on urban management and public services. But parking services can't put the cart before the horse, charge for the sake of charging, and forget what the charge is for.
From the perspective of some government departments and related businesses, parking services are often seen as "cash cows" looking to solve financial pressures and generate more revenue by charging parking fees. However, on-street parking space is a public resource, which determines that it must insist on taking and using it for the people, rather than becoming a "cash machine" for individual departments and enterprises.
There is no doubt that in order to solve the supply and demand problem of urban parking services, it is necessary to make articles on both supply and demand. On the one hand, it is necessary to increase the planning, development and release of parking space on the supply side; On the other hand, people should be guided to travel and park at different peaks through the price mechanism.
However, many cities use price leverage as a "grasp", simply by increasing the charging price to curb citizens' parking demand, which in turn leads to a false balance between the supply and demand of urban parking services. How to further innovate the parking service model and increase the supply of parking space may be what local governments should think about and promote.
It is worth noting that parking service companies in many cities use the name "smart parking", but they are playing clever, far from big wisdom. The essence of smart parking is to make good use of intelligent technology, accurately identify parking demand and dynamically adjust charging methods, efficiently use parking space resources and meet parking service needs.
Therefore, parking services are designed to maximize the public benefit of the city, not to maximize parking charges. As a cause related to people's livelihood and well-being, urban parking services should serve the people through intelligent computing, rather than being reduced to simple and crude "calculations" for profit.
At the same time, many local governments and enterprises are currently caught in parking service fee disputes, which also shows that top-down guidance, regulation and supervision are far from enough. If some guided, operable and binding policies can be formulated at the central and provincial levels to guide local government departments to adopt a relatively reasonable parking service charging model, it may be possible to effectively avoid the frequent occurrence of such problems.
Therefore, strengthening the setting, implementation and use of funds for local government parking service charges, and timely correction and rectification of some unreasonable practices are also work that needs to be carried out in the future. (Beijing News)