Hobart parking officers have allegedly been instructed to issue tickets “without checking if the parking has been paid for online via the Easy Park app” according to one councillor – but the council say the system is working correctly.
Councillor Louise Elliot says hundreds of “unfair and borderline fraudulent tickets” may have been issued, with the situation believed to have been going on ‘for several weeks’.
“I’ve been contacted by multiple sources from within Council who have advised that several parking officers are unable to access the back end of the Council’s online payment system and have been instructed to issue parking tickets regardless,” the councillor said.
“Issuing parking tickets without all the required checks being done would be appalling.”
People understandably hate getting a ticket at the best of times, let alone when they have paid.”
“People have enough to do without having to waste time and energy fighting unfair parking tickets.”
“I suspect there would be many people who would simply pay, assuming they had made a mistake of some sort.”
She said she would be following up the “very serious” issue with the CEO.
“Parking is a huge money maker for the Council and I’m sure there would be pressure to bring in the money.”
“I understand that lots of parking officers are unhappy with what’s going on and are caught between following instructions and their own conscience”.
However, the City of Hobart say manual infringement checks are required in certain areas without bay parking numbers, with officers given a handheld device they can use to verify parking.
“The City of Hobart EasyPark system operates differently to any other in Australia in that payments are made directly to the City straight from the app once the parking space identification number has been recorded,” City of Hobart City Life Director Karen Abey told Pulse.
“This means that City of Hobart parking officials do not need to check EasyPark to see if a payment has been made,” Abey said.
“There are some parking areas (Salamanca Square Car Park, the Wharf areas, and the Regatta Grounds car parks) where payment can be made via EasyPark (or alternatively by parking voucher) by reference to an area rather than an individual parking space.”
“In those areas, there is no automatic check by the EasyPark system and a manual check of payments is made as part of the process of determining whether an infringement is issued.”
“In these areas, we ensure the Parking and Information Officers are provided with handheld issuing devices that have a functional EasyPark payment verification app installed.”
“The EasyPark system is operating correctly and has not been issuing incorrect parking infringements.”
She encouraged anyone who feels they may have incorrectly received a parking infringement notice to raise it for review with the City of Hobart.
