Paid parking in Toulouse: the hunt for fraudsters
With the acquisition of a plate reading system, voted on this Friday by the city council, Toulouse will increase the control of the 16,300 paid parking spaces in its streets.
Do not pay at the parking meter. This is a Toulouse tradition that has died out. A few years ago, according to one estimate, only 17% of motorists bothered to slip a part into the device. When the amount of the PV went from € 17 to € 30, in 2018, this rate rose to 30% of payers. And therefore 70% of fraudsters …
And since things have not improved: deputy mayor in charge of security, Emilion Esnault mentioned, this Friday, October 22, the same percentage.
Like other cities, such as Paris, Marseille, Lille or Montpellier, Toulouse has decided to buy an automatic number plate reading system. Placed on a vehicle that travels at low speed, the device makes it possible to control much more quickly since the registration number is now provided by the motorist during payment.
Today, thirty-three agents are responsible for controlling the parking lot. This is not enough to review the 16,300 paid places in the Pink City in a single day. With the new device, Emilion Esnault intends to achieve this goal.
No tolerance
This Friday, at the city council, elected officials adopted a decision which plans to equip “four to five vehicles” with this system at a cost of 204,000 €. If the pressure will be stronger on motorists, the deputy mayor, despite the direction indicated, was cautious about the objectives and therefore the level of control that will be established. “I do not set a rate to be achieved,” he says. We’re going to be as efficient as possible. “An objective meaning that” also admits a percentage of people who cannot, “adds Jean-Luc Moudenc, the mayor, who has not shown himself to be in favor of tolerance.
Faced with the increase in neighborhoods with resident parking, and therefore paid spaces, the town hall above all needs the means to control everything. Esnault. The elected representative also wishes to give other missions to the agents, in particular the control of the blue zones in the commercial streets.
“It is not a question of bludgeoning but of enforcing the parking lot”, insists the deputy mayor who underlines that the request often emanates from the inhabitants themselves. “Those who pay for resident parking are asking for better verbalization of sucker cars. “For Jean-Luc Moudenc,” the only losers are the fraudsters. “
Emilion Esnault gives himself the time for preparatory work. And only consider going into effect in the first six months of 2022.
The Archipel group, which voted against, thus warned about the control of the parking of disabled people who are entitled to free access, including outside reserved spaces. “The CNIL is opposed to the registration of the disabled in a database,” says Maxime Le Texier.
If the operation of the device remains to be specified, Emilion Esnault affirmed that in the end, the verbalization will be done by a person who will validate or not the control. “
PV per camera: the extended perimeter
In a few days, the videotape will be extended beyond the boulevards throughout the city. Until now, it has applied to parking on cycle paths, sidewalks, entrances, bus lines… that is to say, “annoying and very annoying” parking (and not paid parking). Tomorrow, it will also concern other offenses: rodeos, excesses of wedding processions, forbidden directions taken by scooters … This Friday, at the city council, during the adoption of this device, Emilion Esnault said. manual. “It’s not about videotaping everywhere, all the time. It will be in certain places, at certain times, during one-off missions. “
The precision did not reassure the Archipel group, which abstained. “We share the problem of parking incivility but the extension is done without evaluation of the safety benefit of the inhabitants”, exposes Maxime Le Texier who also mentions “stigmatizing offenses”. Vincent Gibert (PS) and Pierre Lacaze (PCF) voted against because we are going there “from a logic of video protection to video over-tagging. We must prevent bad behavior, not verbalize it. “
Today, 11,000 vehicle videotapes are carried out in the city center perimeter.