Managing Issues And Recommendations For Parramatta City Council Car Park System

You are required to prepare a report based on the case study: “Parramatta City Council Car Park System” (provided on LEO) incorporating topics from week 1 to week 4 and supported by references through additional readings. Your active participation in the class (for on campus students only)will also be taken into account & may be assessed.

Main issues and problems

Parramatta is a prominent suburb of Sydney and it is considered as major business and commercial centre and the ninth largest shopping centre in Australia. Apart from this, it is also considered as the major transport hub for Western Sydney. As per the case study, Parramatta City Council handles seven car parking centres in the centre of Parramatta. With regards to this, this body controls all day-to-day operations of each parking system which includes maintaining entry, exit of cars, issuing tickets, analysing issues faced by the clients as well as by the security agencies, maintaining the record for monitoring service agreements, etc. Apart from this, this body has appointed several security companies for managing the security of each car parking centre (Rauscher & Momtaz, 2017).

Organization has now decided to introduce new system in order to control car parks through which all operations could be managed accordingly in order to reduce cost and for enhancing effectiveness of the car parking centres. With regards to this, report will focus over analysing major issues and problems faced by Parramatta car parking centres and in addition to this, critical evaluation of all issues faced by the current parking system will be analysed so that better and relevant resolutions could be determined in order to enhance the effectiveness of car parking centres situated at Parramatta along with the objective of introducing new car parking system for controlling multiple operations.

Major issues and problems faced by Parramatta City Council in terms of managing all car parking centres are analysing the requirement of new system for controlling car parks at all parking systems. I have analysed that car parking management system controls all aspects related to car parking and these are not included in day-to-day operational system. Amongst these operations, following are major issues and problems which I have analysed in the functionalities of car parking system:

• Fault recording: Faults which arises in the parking centres are issues with equipment such as security cameras, card readers, barriers, etc. In relation to this, there is no system available which could record the date and time of the incident for the particular fault. This also affects the whole car parking system. Thus, there is a requirement of effective fault recording system through which faults occurred at the parking centres could easily be recorded so that resolutions could be evaluated immediately (Birtles, et. al., 2015).
• Service level agreements:It is required to record date and time in relation to the issues when they are fixed. This is necessary in relation with maintaining the service level agreement with the maintenance company. This is also essential in terms of recording monthly fault report along with their resolutions so that further issues could easily be resolved.
• Security SLA:Reports are required which could show the number of days where the minimum number of cars were not parked in comparison to the contracted number. This reduces the revenue for the car parking system which ultimately affects the overall revenue of the Council.
• Season Tickets:Due to lack of sub-system for selling season tickets is another big issue because season tickets are issues under individual name or for company. Season tickets are issued for three, six or twelve calendar months and these tickets are required to be renewed before their expiry in order to provide uninterrupted services. But current system is not able to notify their clients regarding their expiry dates which raises certain issues (Rauscher & Momtaz, 2016).
• Other issues faced by City Council Park System are maintaining record of all tickets sold or issues in one year. Due to this, Council is not able to determine the income for the whole, maintaining records for staffs, cost of equipment, cost of repair, security costs, etc. are other big concerns which are not properly managed.

The issues faced by Council are affecting the parking centres’ effectiveness. Car parking centres require appropriate controlling systems through which faults could be determined in early stages so that appropriate resolutions could be implemented. Along with this, Council is also suffering from weak measures for maintaining the car parking centres due to which numerous issues arises like broken windows, doors, non-functioning of security cameras, car reading machines, etc.

• Fault Recording: Due to inappropriate measures adopted by the Council for recording faults at the parking centres, various issues and problems were faced by the clients who used to park their cars at Parramatta shopping centres. It has been observed various times that equipment at parking centres are damaged but those are not brought into notice of management due to inappropriate fault recording system. With regards to this, Council is planning to adopt an appropriate system which could maintain the records of faults along with maintaining the records when those issues were resolved along with the measures which were adopted for resolving issues (Rauscher & Momtaz, 2017).
• Security SLA:Security is the most necessary aspect for this car parking system because Parramatta is one of the behemoth parking spots throughout the world and it is the ninth largest shopping centre in Australia, thus, it could be imagined that how many cars are being parked at one time in those parking spots. Thus, requirement of security is must as it will help the controlling and managing authorities to develop confidence amongst their clients by providing them assurance for safety and reliability of their cars parked in those car parking stations. Along with this, another major issue is maintaining a report which could provide detailed information to the higher level managers about the number of car visits each day and for how much time. Due to lack of information, City Council of parking systems is not able to determine the future requirement for appropriate management of car parking.
• Season tickets: Selling season tickets is one of the major sources of revenues for Parramatta car parking centres. Each season ticket is being issues to individuals or under company names. Each season ticket is issues for three, six and for twelve months and if an individual or company takes season ticket, they may forget to renew it and due to lack of appropriate information system, Council is not able to notify them for renewing their passes so that they could avail uninterrupted services. Apart from this, another major issue faced by parking system is maintaining record for season ticket holders along with keeping record for those users who have renewed their season tickets (Grant-Smith, Osborne & Johnson, 2017).
• Lack of record keeping is the major issue and as per my opinion, no organization or authority could estimate its performance without appropriate controls. Council of parking centres are not able to estimate their annual income due to which maintaining record for expenses becomes another difficult task. Managing operational cost is a big concern for the car parking stations in order to analyse the net income. Due to these issues, Council has determined the requirement of new parking system to control all the operations of car parking stations in order to enhance the efficiency of parking centres as well as enhancing service quality.

From the whole analysis of report, it has been analysed that Parramatta Car Parking system requires appropriate management system in order to enhance performance of the parking systems as well as with the objective of enhancing the quality of services offered to the consumers. With the help of an appropriate operational system, Parramatta City Council will easily be able to operate its car parking stations along with resolving all the issues and problems faced by existing operational system. Parramatta City Council has appointed number of security agencies for managing different car parking stations which becomes difficult for the body to adopt appropriate security measures because every security agency has its own way of executing and managing tasks. City Council is planning to reduce the number of security agencies in order to reduce the faults along with managing those faults in an appropriate manner.

Apart from this, it has also been observed that Parramatta is one of the largest car parking areas across the globe and it is counted in the largest shopping centres and in order to match up with the future requirements, it is necessary to expand the parking spaces. With the help of other parking spaces, Council would easily be able to match up with the future requirements of the public along with enhancing their revenues from parking stations.

Conclusion

In this report, operational system of Parramatta City Council Car parking station has been discussed in order to determine the main challenges, issues and problems faced by the parking stations. Currently, Council is managing seven parking stations and as per the analysis, it has been concluded that these issues are the major reason through which their efficiency is being affected. Council is not able to determine their net revenues, operational cost, managing and staffing cost, etc. In relation with this, recommendations have been provided to the Council for the objective of enhancing their performance as well as for enhancing the service equality by adopting unique measures of security

References

Birtles, P., Hoban, A., Tippler, C., Shoo, B., Davies, P. and Wright, I., 2015. Liveability and an urban creek: Perspectives and dreams of residents who are not yet. 9th International Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD 2015), p.24.

Grant-Smith, D., Osborne, N. and Johnson, L., 2017. Managing the challenges of combining mobilities of care and commuting: an Australian perspective. Community, Work & Family, 20(2), pp.201-210.

Rauscher, R.C. and Momtaz, S., 2016. Cities in Global Transition: Creating Sustainable Communities in Australia. Springer.

Rauscher, R.C. and Momtaz, S., 2017. Planning Greater Parramatta District–Greater Sydney. In Cities in Global Transition (pp. 231-255). Springer, Cham.

Rauscher, R.C. and Momtaz, S., 2017. Planning in Greater Sydney–Parramatta City Case Study. In Cities in Global Transition (pp. 179-198). Springer, Cham