Motorists at the National Arts Festival must abide by a new parking meter system this year.
Diversified Parking System (DPS), a private parking company, was given a tender to run the meter system by the Makana Municipal Council.
DPS employees, operating hand-held meters and wearing fluorescent yellow and orange bibs and yellow caps, work on particular streets. First, they enter the vehicle registration into their meters as you park. When you depart, they collect the tariff, which is calculated according to the number of minutes you were parked.
The tariffs for the festival period have been reduced to R2.50 per hour, or 50c per 12 minutes. (Regular prices are R3 per hour or 50c per 10 minutes.) However, parking is free if it is for three minutes or less. The tariffs apply only between 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 1pm on Saturdays.
There are no limitations on how long you can park, but you will be charged for the hours that fall within the tariff time period. So if you leave your car in a metered area for the day, you will be charged from 8am to 5pm, which works out to R22.50.
Festival motorists attending a performance and needing to park in one of the patrolled streets for an estimated two hours should expect to pay about R5.
The new tariff is noticeably higher than that of the standard meters because the tip for the meter operator has been incorporated into the tariff amount.
The streets where DPS works are New Street, Bathurst Street, Beaufort Street, Hill Street, Dundas Street and Knight Street. In the excluded streets, DPS employees, along with the previous car guard organisation under the supervision of Victor Mfecane, work as car guards. They wear blue bibs, and do not have meters, but are offering to watch over vehicles for tips. DPS car guards working for tips are also stationed at the Monument.
Johann Grobler, a DPS manager, says that the system is still in its initial stage, but has been working smoothly so far. DPS also has the support of the Makana Municipal Traffic Department. As a result, Grobler does not predict any trouble occurring with the system.
Motorists should, however, consider the time it takes for the DPS meter operators to collect money and allow enough time before and after perform-ances for transactions.
Meter operators do not always have change, but Grobler explained that the process is similar to that of street meters, so drivers should have the correct change for this system too. Having loose change will help ensure that the system runs efficiently. – Cue-Cuewire