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Car Parking - Improvements

jon81uk said:
and in the USA you can pay three times as much! I think the Florida parks are up to about $24 now.
£7 for all day parking isn't too bad compared to council car parks. But given there is almost no other option at Alton Towers as the public transport is so poor, they should consider if buses can be further improved and whether the parking charge is the right amount.
At Thorpe Park where there is a great bus service I think there is scope to increase the parking charge higher still.
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Yeah the Florida parks just take the piss, though I haven't looked into the public transport there. Am assuming like most parks in the US, there isn't any.
 
speedy said:
Last time I visited I took a taxi to the park which cost over £15 after splitting four ways. I know there's little public transport options and it needs improving but I don't think it's right for people who do use public transport/taxis to be subsidising car drivers.

At the same time I reckon the park is overcharging for parking, the cost should only be to cover maintenance of the car parks and the staff who run them
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Try the USA parks- Disney is $25 a day at their car parks, six flags and ceader fair charge about $30 a day! £7-9 is a bargain in comparison
 
At Walt Disney World they now also charge between $15 and $25 per night for parking if you stay in their resort hotels.
 
Stuie said:
It makes sense that the people visiting 17 times on a season pass pay extra on a per visit basis, in my opinion.
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Well no, the price of the season pass would increase slightly to accommodate the parking charge, hence why a premium pass is already more expensive than standard. Besides, I am talking about people who dont have parking included in their passes.

By the way - dont get me wrong, I dont object to paying to park in places but I do object when there is no other alternative. Take today for example, I have to go into the city centre to get something from a shop. I could use the bus, I could walk, I could use the park and ride, or I could use the train. As it happens, I am in work and its quicker for me to use my car, and for that I will pay £2.50 for an hour to park. I accept this as there are other transport options I can use. In the case of Alton Towers, public transport to and from the park is very limited if at all.
 
jon81uk said:
I think actually there is an OK bus service for the Florida parks (maybe even better than AT!) and of course a lot of hotels provide shuttles too.
The public buses are by Lynx https://www.golynx.com/core/fileparse.php/97362/urlt/LNX_Lft_DisneyArea_WEB_190813.pdf
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Thanks for the info. Though getting to Busch Gardens from Orlando appears to take about three hours whereas in the car it would be 1hr20 ish.

Honestly I don't think the parking charge at Alton Towers is that bad.
 
speedy said:
At the same time I reckon the park is overcharging for parking, the cost should only be to cover maintenance of the car parks and the staff who run them
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I agree with the notion that public transport to Alton Towers should and could be much better, but the park is a private business and the car park is their property. I agree with almost all of your points in the election thread, Speedy, but in this case, the park exists to make a profit. You would probably fall short of making this argument about hot dogs or on-ride photos. I realise that the parking is a different kettle of fish, though, especially with little to no other option for guests.
 
I repeat. Six flags is over $30 a day for their lowest tier parking at some parks and they are not in the middle of Orlando...

As Shawn says that chain make Merlin look generous!
 
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Plastic Person said:
I agree with the notion that public transport to Alton Towers should and could be much better, but the park is a private business and the car park is their property. I agree with almost all of your points in the election thread, Speedy, but in this case, the park exists to make a profit. You would probably fall short of making this argument about hot dogs or on-ride photos. I realise that the parking is a different kettle of fish, though, especially with little to no other option for guests.
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The hot dogs are overpriced too, but at least you can bring a packed lunch.
 
Plastic Person said:
I agree with the notion that public transport to Alton Towers should and could be much better, but the park is a private business and the car park is their property. I agree with almost all of your points in the election thread, Speedy, but in this case, the park exists to make a profit. You would probably fall short of making this argument about hot dogs or on-ride photos. I realise that the parking is a different kettle of fish, though, especially with little to no other option for guests.
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I'm not that bothered to be honest as I don't drive :D

Not often you'll find me sticking up for car drivers. My normal response to complainers on parking charges is "take public transport instead" but the options are limited.

As mentioned already at least we're not in the US!
 
ringo said:
There was chat of ANPR over a TPM as a way of resolving the flow issues at Thorpe.

The barriers in a way help the flow of exit as it creates the bottleneck there instead of pushing it down to the entrance and saturating the local roads.
ANPR if done properly and linked to traffic lights would manage the flow and allow proper management.

They could link the system to the app, parking machines or any retail outlet and let people pay the fee. Pass holders who get parking included could scan their pass instead of paying or let you register your details against your pass but restrict how many times you change vehicle as obviously some would abuse it by changing the registered car to let friends get free parking.

In reality Merlin wouldn’t make the investment would they.
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And there is no way I would trust Merlin to handle the ANPR data in a GDPR-compliant manner! Back in the Tussauds days the "sophisticated firewall" in place al Alton Towers allegedly let the HR Director surf adult material on the internet in his office.

If Merlin did go down the ANPR route, they would just be best to contract it out to Parking Eye / CP Parking who manage many supermarket / retail park carparks. The threat of a £100 "fine" for not paying the parking fee would probably increase revenue, even after the 3rd party operator has taken their cut.

If you're clocked into the carpark but then don't exit properly (i.e. by exiting through the entrance as some do) you get the fine, unless your numberplate is registered at hotel / shed check-in. No idea how they would manage annual pass holders as at present the AP holder just has to be in the car, i.e. not necessarily their car.
 
Kraken27 said:
Back in the Tussauds days the "sophisticated firewall" in place al Alton Towers allegedly let the HR Director surf adult material on the internet in his office.
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ToyLandTours3.jpg
 
Kraken27 said:
And there is no way I would trust Merlin to handle the ANPR data in a GDPR-compliant manner! Back in the Tussauds days the "sophisticated firewall" in place al Alton Towers allegedly let the HR Director surf adult material on the internet in his office.

If Merlin did go down the ANPR route, they would just be best to contract it out to Parking Eye / CP Parking who manage many supermarket / retail park carparks. The threat of a £100 "fine" for not paying the parking fee would probably increase revenue, even after the 3rd party operator has taken their cut.

If you're clocked into the carpark but then don't exit properly (i.e. by exiting through the entrance as some do) you get the fine, unless your numberplate is registered at hotel / shed check-in. No idea how they would manage annual pass holders as at present the AP holder just has to be in the car, i.e. not necessarily their car.
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Almost all multi-storey car parks where you pay on foot and then drive to a barrier to exit use ANPR now, it prints the number plate reg on the ticket on entry even. AT would just use an off-the-shelf parking system if they wanted this https://members.skidata.com/index.p...ey=3d70caf9bdf88881939e38217d345e5f&file=7119
The harder part as you say is tying it into the Accesso ticketing system for annual passes etc. At the moment I think they use Skidata barriers and turnstiles, but they are controlled by the Accesso ticketing system, so adding in ANPR as well would get messy!
 
RoyJess said:
What maintenance? Up until a couple of years ago, we had to play dodge the pot holes, especially the road leading up to the disable parking :p
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Exactly it was only post smiler that they actually made some improvements and that was only because people had focused on how neglected the park was.
 
jon81uk said:
Almost all multi-storey car parks where you pay on foot and then drive to a barrier to exit use ANPR now, it prints the number plate reg on the ticket on entry even. AT would just use an off-the-shelf parking system if they wanted this https://members.skidata.com/index.p...ey=3d70caf9bdf88881939e38217d345e5f&file=7119
The harder part as you say is tying it into the Accesso ticketing system for annual passes etc. At the moment I think they use Skidata barriers and turnstiles, but they are controlled by the Accesso ticketing system, so adding in ANPR as well would get messy!
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Fully agree, many multi-storey carparks (either with paper ticket or a chip-coin) use ANPR & many are on Skidata systems. Luton Airport use Skidata and if you've pre-booked parking, the barrier just issues you a ticket on arrival with your number plate printed on it. I remember having a "chat" with an old gentleman at East Midlands Airport who had entered the car park in front of me, but dropped his chip-coin down the drain... he then wanted my chip-coin from the barrier. Had to explain to him it would be 100% useless as linked to my number plate.

Back to Towers, the really hard bit would be how to exempt premium AP holders & hotel guests from the parking charge without forcing them to register a vehicle. I suspect the "more mature" traffic team at the AT carpark exit barriers are going nowhere fast.

Before they went onto the Skidata system, didn't they ask you to use a certain two barriers for Annual Passes, e.g. the left two / right hand two, in an attempt to reduce the number of staff needed to let AP holders out? Am pretty sure they did, but as with all signs at Towers, they are widely ignored.
 
Kraken27 said:
Fully agree, many multi-storey carparks (either with paper ticket or a chip-coin) use ANPR & many are on Skidata systems. Luton Airport use Skidata and if you've pre-booked parking, the barrier just issues you a ticket on arrival with your number plate printed on it. I remember having a "chat" with an old gentleman at East Midlands Airport who had entered the car park in front of me, but dropped his chip-coin down the drain... he then wanted my chip-coin from the barrier. Had to explain to him it would be 100% useless as linked to my number plate.

Back to Towers, the really hard bit would be how to exempt premium AP holders & hotel guests from the parking charge without forcing them to register a vehicle. I suspect the "more mature" traffic team at the AT carpark exit barriers are going nowhere fast.

Before they went onto the Skidata system, didn't they ask you to use a certain two barriers for Annual Passes, e.g. the left two / right hand two, in an attempt to reduce the number of staff needed to let AP holders out? Am pretty sure they did, but as with all signs at Towers, they are widely ignored.
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Would think the easiest thing to do would be to have a scan terminal where you would scan the barcode on your pass and input the car registration to authorise the vehicle. Plenty of these systems have a scan point to give free parking (we give our cancer patients barcodes which allow them to authorise patients on the hospital ANPR carparking system for free)
 
When it comes to Towers we all know that any technology will inevitably stop working or not get maintained. These car reg terminals will all have a ‘mind boggling moment’ in no time and have ‘a million apologies’ signs slapped on them never to work again.

The current system works fine, except on very busy days when they tend to just lift all the barriers anyway. The only improvement I can think of is to add the ability to buy parking tickets to the app to save having to queue at machines or ticket windows.
 
AT86 said:
When it comes to Towers we all know that any technology will inevitably stop working or not get maintained. These car reg terminals will all have a ‘mind boggling moment’ in no time and have ‘a million apologies’ signs slapped on them never to work again.
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Spot-on! Any car reg terminals Towers installed would die, fast. Then the "A million apologies - but still have a fantabulous day" laminates would get stuck onto them.
 
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