Feeling cheated by DBKL’s new parking rates

The 100 per cent increase in parking fees in KL is a double blow as it is only applicable for the whole hour and not a fraction of it unlike how it is in PJ.

COMMENT

A good friend of mine came for our usual breakfast gathering the other day, all upset. Apparently she had some issues with the parking machine in the neighbourhood, and felt cheated.

You see, the neighbourhood we usually meet at is under Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL). Previously, the parking charges was RM0.50 per hour. Recently it has been increased by 100 per cent. My friend parked her car at 8:08am and struggled to find sufficient coins to cover the two hours we usually spend together every Wednesday morning.

She only found RM1.90 in her purse.

Thinking that would do, she proceeded inserting the coins. The parking coupon was soon printed – but instead of a little less than two hours of parking time which she was entitled to, she was given only one hour of parking.

Parking Rate: RM1.00 per hour

Parking Paid: RM1.90

Parking Time: 8:08 to 9:07

Alarmed by the incident, my friends and I compared our parking coupons – I paid RM2.50 for two and a half hours but received only two hours; another friend paid RM1.50 but received an hour of parking time; the only one friend who paid RM2.00 received what she paid for – two hours’ of parking time.

Not willing to let this go, I checked the terminal number of the parking machines on the parking coupon to determine if this had something to do with a faulty machine – I found that all our coupons were issued from different terminals, indicating that this was a problem associated with a faulty system. So I did what a typical woman would do – I snooped around.

To my dismay, it was in fact mentioned on the tiny screen of the parking machine that the parking rate was RM1.00 per hour “atau sebahagian daripadanya”. This means the parking rate is only applicable for a whole hour and not a fraction of it. In other words, you can only pay for one hour or two hours and not anything in between.

Darn. Looks like it is the consumers’ fault for not rolling our eyes big enough to read the tiny print on the screen, eh?

But then again, if that is how the system was meant to work, should it not be programmed to cough out the excess payment that was insufficient to cover the extra hour?

Parking Rate: RM1.00 per hour

Parking Paid: RM1.90

Parking Time: 8:08 to 9:07

Excess Payment: RM0.90

I find it quite odd that DBKL, although using a new system from Sweden which cost them RM23 million to install, falls short of the old parking machines in my own neighbourhood, Petaling Jaya – which takes into account every sen inserted in the coin slot.

Parking Rate: RM0.60 per hour

Parking Paid: RM0.90

Parking Time: 8:08 to 9:37

If the Petaling Jaya City Council can do it, why not DBKL?

This actually raises an important question – is DBKL cheating consumers or are they just being plain ignorant?

Frankly consumers like me feel cheated not only by the increase in parking rates in KL and the fact that the parking machines are eating up our coins without giving us the sufficient parking time, but also because every now then, the machines swallow our coins and do not issue a coupon in return – when that happens, we end-up paying more. Sometimes machines turn faulty right after coins are inserted – as I experienced twice last month – and heck, I ended-up paying more and more!

An acquaintance of mine, recently received a summons from DBKL for not paying parking fees despite her already having made the payment via a smartphone parking application called JomParking. To settle the matter, she now has to make a trip to the DBKL office, a trip that will incur additional costs for her – not forgetting more parking fees!

Angered, a few friends and I got down to some serious maths the other day:

The new parking rate is now RM1.00 per hour. One parking bay can earn up to RM8 in a day (8 hours @ RM1.00 p/hr). For 25 working days, one parking bay can earn up to RM200 a month. Taking into account the 46,100 parking bays in Kuala Lumpur, that would deliver a revenue of RM9.2 million in just one month and a whopping RM110.4 million in a year.

Mind you, this is only based on the increased parking rate and not all the other issues I’ve mentioned above. Seriously, where does all this money go?

Feeling optimistic that the revenue from parking would be used to improve our public transportation, I did some research but I almost fell off my chair upon finding out that DBKL has been out-sourcing the parking system to third parties for the past four decades. Last year it was Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan (YWP) who paid 35 per cent of their gross revenue (RM0.50 per hour before the 100 per cent increase) to DBKL in return for the rights to manage the city’s parking system, and this year, based on the boards I see around neighbourhoods in Kuala Lumpur, it is Vista Summerose Sdn Bhd.

Two things seem to be crystal clear:

• No effort has been put into improving our public transportation woes despite the claim that the increased parking rates were to reduce heavy traffic.
• Consumers like you and me will continue to carry the heaviest burden by forking out more and more every time we want to park our cars.