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ITEM EX13

REVIEW OF MANAGEMENT & OPERATION OF PARK & RIDE CAR PARKS

1. There are now 5 Park & Ride car parks, with over 5,000 spaces, around the fringes of Oxford. Seacourt and Pear Tree are leased and operated by the City Council; Redbridge is owned and operated by the City Council; Water Eaton and Thornhill are leased and operated by the County Council.
2. Oxfordshire County Council took over the lease and responsibility for the Thornhill car park from the City Council during 2002, and extended it in size from 450 to 950 spaces during the winter. The County Council began construction of the Water Eaton car park last summer, and the first 400 spaces became available for use in December 2002. The car park is now effectively complete (800 spaces) and the new terminal building with waiting room and toilets was officially opened in July 2003.
3. At its meeting on 4 September 2002, the Executive approved the award of a contract to Central Parking Systems for the management of the Thornhill and Water Eaton car parks, "subject to further report in 6 months on the operation of both sites with particular reference to hours of operation and security." This review report has been held back to allow time for the operation to settle down following construction work at both sites, and the introduction of charging in April.
4. Park & Ride remains a crucial component of the Oxford Transport Strategy and the 5,000 spaces, linked to frequent bus services, hugely increase accessibility to the city centre. It is also planned to have an increasing role in enhancing accessibility to the Headington hospitals. If all the motorists who currently use Park & Ride were to instead drive into the city, it would add 10% to traffic levels over the day as a whole, but in the morning peak hour this would rise to over 25%. The additional congestion that would result would be immense and impact on all other road users.

Scope of the Management Contract

5. The services included in the contract for the County-operated sites are as follows:

• Car park security, parking enforcement and illegal vehicle management/removal;
• Car park operation, including ticket machine operation, cash collection and access control;
• CCTV Monitoring and back up;
• Terminal building cleaning, including toilets;
• Car park surface cleaning and winter salting;
• Maintenance of trees, hedges and the landscape;
• Non-structural repairs of the terminal building and car park.

6. The contract will run until 31 March 2007, which is the earliest possible date of termination of the existing On-Street Parking Contract. This offers the opportunity at that time to invite tenders for a combined operation.
7. The current hours of staff cover at the sites are set out below. These broadly reflect the hours of operation of the dedicated Park & Ride bus services. During these hours there are 2 officers on site at all times, plus a roving supervisor. Outside of these hours there is surveillance by a large number of CCTV cameras, which are recording continuously. Under the terms of the contract, the Council can require the hours of cover to be varied - with consequent changes to the cost. The car parks are available for public use 24 hours a day, which allows motorists to return after the dedicated bus service has finished, or even leave their cars overnight which happens to a significant degree at Thornhill.

Thornhill - Hours of Staff Cover Monday to Saturday: 05.30 to 23.30 Sunday: 08.30 to 21.30

Water Eaton - Hours of Staff Cover Monday to Saturday: 06.30 to 21.00 Sunday: No Cover (No Sunday bus service)

Car Park Charge & Security

8. There is a charge of 60p for parking a car at each of the 5 sites, discounted for regular users. This provides for 24-hours parking. At Thornhill, motorists can park for up to 3 days (by purchasing 3 days parking). This facility is welcomed by a number of people who travel to Heathrow or Gatwick airports or London on the express bus services which pass the site. At Thornhill and Water Eaton, parking charges came into effect in April 2003.
9. Before the introduction of security staff by the City Council to 3 of their car parks about 5 years ago - which coincided with the introduction of the parking charge - there was an unacceptable degree of theft or damage to vehicles. While not out of proportion to crime rates occurring on city streets or at other off-street car parks, it was widely felt that the Park & Ride sites should aspire to the highest standards of security. The introduction of security staff has however, dramatically reduced the number of incidents recorded.
10. The total number of crimes a year recorded by the Police has fallen from about 500 to about 125 in 2002/03 (compared with an aggregate of around 1m vehicles parked in that year). Seventy-five (60%) of these were recorded at Thornhill. At the time of compiling this report, the Police have yet to record a single incident at Water Eaton, and we have now been issued with a Secure Parking Award for the site. We worked very closely with the Police in the design of the extension at Thornhill and are seeing the benefits of this in reducing crime figures. In the first five months of the current financial year, only ten criminal acts have been recorded at Thornhill.
11. Since the new management regime was introduced, virtually all of the incidents at Thornhill have occurred during the hours that the staff are not there. A significant number of vehicles are left on site until the early hours of the night or throughout the night, and it is a small proportion of these that are currently vulnerable. The improvements to the car park currently being developed (see paragraphs 19 and 20 below) will bring more activity to the site and reduce the risks, but in themselves may not be sufficient to get it down to the very low levels experienced at the other car parks. Providing staff cover throughout the night would add around £60k a year to the costs of the Management Contract. At this moment we are in discussions with the Police about alternative ways to enhance security at the site overnight which might prove effective.

Use of Car Parks

12. There has been steady growth in the use of Park & Ride since the 1970s until the last few years, when this has levelled off. This change occurred around the time that parking charges were introduced, but by then Thornhill and Pear Tree were already operating close to full capacity. There has even been a reduction in the use of Redbridge, which can be directly linked to the rapid growth in use of local bus services between Abingdon and Oxford.
13. Resumption of growth can now be anticipated arising from the additional capacity at Thornhill and the new Water Eaton car park, and the use of these sites is broadly in line with the projections made a year ago, when we were estimating the income that would arise from parking charges. Future growth will be fuelled in part by the planned introduction of parking controls in the Summertown, North Oxford, and Headington areas, and new bus services to the Headington hospitals.

Bus Services

14. All sites have a dedicated bus service to the city centre, which operate 7 days a week, apart from Water Eaton which has no Sunday service. Lower frequency services operate in the evening, and finish earlier on a Sunday. At present all services are operated commercially. Members will however be aware that the Oxford Bus Company recently registered changes which would remove all evening services after 20.00 and halve (to every 20 minutes) the daytime service to Water Eaton. We are advised that additional revenue is currently insufficient to cover the increase in costs resulting from providing a completely new service to Water Eaton.
15. I have arranged for a short-term subsidy to be paid until February 2004 to retain all the evening services and to retain the Water Eaton daytime frequency at every 15 minutes, while alternatives are considered. The Transport Implementation Committee in November will be considering what support would be appropriate from February 2004.
16. A new service was introduced between Thornhill and the Churchill Hospital in March 2003 with County Council support. A bid for Urban Bus Challenge funding is being prepared for a new service to operate between Kidlington and the John Radcliffe Hospital via the Water Eaton car park. If successful, this would be operating from Autumn 2004.

Users’ Views of Park & Ride

17. A survey of users of all car parks was undertaken in June 2003 for the County Council by Oxford Brookes University. Amongst the most significant findings are remarkably high levels of satisfaction with facilities at Water Eaton. In relation to the appearance and conditions of the car park, security, waiting facilities and helpfulness of staff, the number of people rating these as good is roughly double those for all the other sites. Responses for Thornhill are broadly similar to the three City Council operated sites. This is not surprising given that the original area of parking has not been improved, and the passenger facilities remain basic. A copy of the full results of the survey will be placed in the Members’ Resource Centre as soon as it is available.
18. It is intended that parts of this survey will be repeated annually with a view to monitoring any changes. Working with our contractor, the intention is to achieve year on year increases in satisfaction with the services offered at Thornhill and Water Eaton. It is important that the City Council also seeks to raise standards at the three sites it currently operates. The City and County Councils need to work closely together to continue to improve the attractiveness of all aspects of the Park & Ride package, and this needs to be subject to future consideration by the Oxford Transport Strategy Working Party with a view to identification of possible action for determination by the respective authorities.

Future Development of Park & Ride Car Parks

19. The Water Eaton car park and the extension to Thornhill have been constructed to much higher standards than previously applied to these sites. To retain their attractiveness it is important that the car parks are subject to further improvement. The Transport Implementation Committee on 25 September will be considering a proposal to create a new interchange at Thornhill, with a substantial new terminal building, and capacity to accommodate other bus services including the London and airport services which pass the site. The cost of this plus refurbishment of the original parking area is currently estimated to be between £1.5 and £2.0m. The cost of upgrading the surface of the other three car parks is likely to be of the order of £1.5m at Redbridge and £1.0m at both Pear Tree and Seacourt.
20. The City Council is independently assessing the possibility of providing terminal buildings, similar to that at Water Eaton, which could possibly be funded from Developer Contributions. The desirability of upgrading all the sites is clearly recognised, but allocation of the substantial capital sums required would have to be considered in the context of future capital programme allocations. Thornhill is considered to be the first priority.

Financial Implications

21. During 2002/03, there was no income from parking charges at Thornhill and Water Eaton, and the cost to the County Council of operating these car parks was £176k.
22. In a full year, the Management Contract will cost £358k. After allowing for other fixed costs and income from parking charges, the projection made a year ago for the net cost of operating the two car parks in 2003/04 was £365k. The actual income and expenditure in the first few months of the current year suggest this is still the likely out-turn figure. The net cost is projected to fall in future years as the use and income from charges increases.

Staff Implications

23. Most activities are included in the Management Contract. This is supervised on a day to day basis by the Parking Manager. Any changes to the terms of the contract would occupy some staff time to bring into effect.

Environmental Implications

24. Park & Ride plays a crucial role in reducing congestion and vehicle emissions in Oxford, which indirectly benefits public health and reduces erosion of its buildings.

Conclusions

25. On the basis of enhanced security and public satisfaction, the current management contract must be judged a success. The net costs to the Council are however significant. These costs could be reduced or increased by varying the hours of staff cover, but it is considered that at present these are about right. The hours may well need to change as the pattern of bus services change in future years.

RECOMMENDATIONS

26. The Executive is RECOMMENDED, subject to consideration of any advice from the Environment Scrutiny Committee (to be reported at the meeting following that Committee’s consideration of a draft of this report on 17 September) to:

1. note that the contract for the management of the two County Council-operated park and ride sites is performing successfully;
2. leave the hours of staff cover at the two County Council-operated sites unchanged at present, but authorise the Director of Environment & Economy, in consultation with the Executive Members for Transport and Strategic Planning & Waste Management, to adjust those hours if this appears desirable in the light of future changes in the pattern of park and ride bus services;
3. request the Oxford Transport Strategy Working Party to develop an Action Plan to improve the attractiveness of the Park & Ride facilities and services in the longer term, for consideration by the City and County Councils.

EDDIE LUCK
Assistant Director (Transport Development)

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Noel Newson Tel: Oxford 815894

September 2003

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