Rory Sutherland
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It is possible both environmentalists and car-lovers might benefit from higher charges for parking, provided other non-behaviour-changing costs (road tax, say) are reduced in step. Certainly it seems ridiculous that Londoners who might pay £75,000 more for a house with an extra 10ft x 9ft bedroom stump up just £115 a year to park a 15ft x 6ft car on the street. A brave government might also follow Shoup’s advice and tackle the urban sprawl created by large supermarket car parks. The Tories were pilloried for the idea of making out-of-town stores charge for parking, though it was far milder than my own remedy for retail overcrowding — all retired people caught shopping at the weekend would be deported.
What has parking to do with technology? Just wait and see. Payment by mobile phone (a concept pioneered by companies such as Verrus.com and RingGo and common in Westminster) will be revolutionary. It allows anyone efficiently to charge for parking without the expense of running meters or ticket machines. Better still, it makes it possible to vary pricing, with an easyJet-style approach to balancing supply and demand. (Shoup recommends prices flex to keep 10 to 15 per cent of parking bays vacant at any time.) It can even tell drivers where parking is available.
Together with pay-as-you-drive insurance plans (a Norwich Union idea described at www.snipurl.com/paydrive) and schemes such as www.streetcar.co.uk, this illustrates that technology can transform the efficiency of car-use, meaning the price of using a car will become better aligned with its social costs.
The greatest benefit may come from GPS. Not only in cutting atmospheric pollution (by routing people around congestion) but visual pollution too. By 2018, with GPS in all cars, we can get rid of all modern metal road signs, restoring British towns and countryside to a tasteful, Betjemanesque state. I am, so far, the only person to propose this. Perhaps it’s one for Mr MacKenzie’s next manifesto?
Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.
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