Car Parking, APCOA (in this case, Oriental Road, Woking) - a cautionary tale

[whole diary]

[grahame]

"Are you loosing sleep at night?" - I think that was one of the questions on the Martin Lewis show last night about whether to carry on with something, along with "can you afford to loose" and there was a third question ...

Yes - I am loosing sleep sitting here at 3 a.m. and typing and Lisa is awake too.

I am convinced - utterly convinced - that the car parking scheme at Woking and probably many other stations is unfairly loaded against the reasonable person doing his or her very best to to use it.  You will note that Bethany Young, in her judgement, confirms that I had every intention of paying and that I believed that I had; assuming she accepts that I am a reasonable person (I wonder myself at times), that is a tacit acceptance that the system that I used to (try to) pay failed (in my case) to meet the objective of accepting payments for parking which it was advertised as doing.  I believe, totally, that I have been wronged in the way the system has worked, and I have been happy so share my data, and my failure to realise I had failed to pay, here in public.  However, now it the time for me to take a pragmatic decision, reach into my "pocket" and pay the people at APCOA^▸ (Car parking company used at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - controlled stations in the area), or RingGo, or SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), the £85 that I believe they are unreasonably charging.

The most enormous "THANK YOU" to friends who are reading this for all your advise, support and hard work researching which is truly appreciated.  But I need to move on, not be consumed by worry, not drop other balls to take on this one of the parking companies, and not be snapping at my wife and keeping her awake.

I know my decision may disappoint some of you, and there is a need to publicise / be reminded of the whole ugly (in my opinion) business of car parking penalty notices, but that is not going to be my battle. This thread and correspondence remains here, at least, as a something that can be found to help inform others into the future. At http://www.passenger.chat/apcoa if you want to share it. Search engines welcome.

31st January.  An empty diary but a long todo list. And a need to get out and get some fresh air once its light.  We then into the second month of 2024 ... a spring in my step.  I expect I'll be "rubbishing" APCOA for the next 30 years as I do a certain airline from 30 years ago, or a food company my parents did from 60 years ago.

Again, thank you to friends. Please forgive me for not taking this one on to the ultimate and not being a banner bearer. Sorry if my decision and cowardice disappoints you, but I need to get on with life.

[Electric train]

I'll give them top marks for speed in answering

Dear Graham,

Thank you for your email dated 27th January 2024 which has been passed to me to investigate and respond.

After a full investigation, I can confirm APCOA^▸ (Car parking company used at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - controlled stations in the area) enforce Woking Station Oriental Road on behalf of South Western Railways. Unfortunately, APCOA are not the payment provider for this location. Payment for this location is to be made via RingGo. Unfortunately, your complaint regarding the system will need to be made to RingGo directly as it is their system your complaint relates to. Unfortunately, RingGo is not operated by APCOA, it is a separate payment provider.

As no payment was made for parking on this date, the vehicle was parked in breach of the Terms and Conditions of parking. As a result of this, the notice was issued correctly. After checking the system, I can confirm the notice was appealed and your appeal was rejected with the option to pay the notice at the discounted rate of £50 or further to appeal to POPLA. After checking the system, I can see the appeal to POPLA was rejected and the notice is now outstanding at the full amount of £85. As the notice was correctly issued and your appeal to POPLA has been rejected the £85 is outstanding.

Kind regards,
Emma Millar
Complaints Handler
APCOA Parking UK^▸ (United Kingdom)

As I understand it, that's rather like me complaining to GWR about a cancellation and asking for Delay Repay, and being told to contact Hitachi because they failed to provide a train to run the service.   

That is APCOA sayin not our problem guv, pay up or with take you to Court ............... basically they don't give a pile of dodo for the users of the carpark just the bubbly at the share holders meeting.

There attitude is the same as you buying a pint of milk that is off from a supper market and them saying    "we are not the providers of the milk ..... you will have to contact the Farmer"

[Mark A]

From Ringo's web site I've appended the pricing information for Oriental Road, Woking. Considerably more puzzling even than a range of train fares: 'Confuse the customer' looks to be part of their business model. Perhaps it's actually integral to their business model?

I now have Talking Heads 'Once in a lifetime' as an earworm but the lyrics are rapidly evolving...

Mark

https://www.myringgo.com/parkinglocator

Monday to Friday

12:00pm - Midnight

Up to 1 Hour

£2.10

2 Hours

£4.20

3 Hours

£6.30

Event Day

24 Hours

Free

24hrs

All Week

7 Days

£51.00

Monday to Friday
Midnight - 12:00pm

For every 1 Day

£12.80

Monday to Friday
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

Monday to Friday
Midnight - 12:00pm

For every 1 Day

£12.80

Monday to Friday
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

Saturday And Sunday

For every 1 Day

£6.40

Monday to Friday
Midnight - 12:00pm

For every 1 Day

£12.80

Monday to Friday
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

Saturday And Sunday

For every 1 Day

£6.40

Fridays
Midnight - 12:00pm

1 Day

£12.80

Fridays
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

2 Days

£12.80

5 Days

£44.80

Fridays

4 Days

£19.20

Monday to Friday
Midnight - 12:00pm

For every 1 Day

£12.80

Monday to Friday
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

Saturday And Sunday

For every 1 Day

£6.40

Fridays
Midnight - 12:00pm

1 Day

£12.80

Fridays
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

2 Days

£12.80

5 Days

£44.80

Fridays

4 Days

£19.20

Bank Holiday

1 Day

£6.40

7 Days

£51.00

1 Month

£179.50

Monday to Friday
Midnight - 12:00pm

For every 1 Day

£12.80

Monday to Friday
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

Saturday And Sunday

For every 1 Day

£6.40

Fridays
Midnight - 12:00pm

1 Day

£12.80

Fridays
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

2 Days

£12.80

5 Days

£44.80

Fridays

4 Days

£19.20

Bank Holiday

1 Day

£6.40

7 Days

£51.00

1 Month

£179.50

1 Month

£179.50

Monday to Friday
Midnight - 12:00pm

For every 1 Day

£12.80

Monday to Friday
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

Saturday And Sunday

For every 1 Day

£6.40

Fridays
Midnight - 12:00pm

1 Day

£12.80

Fridays
12:00pm - Midnight

1 Day

£6.40

2 Days

£12.80

5 Days

£44.80

Fridays

4 Days

£19.20

Bank Holiday

1 Day

£6.40

7 Days

£51.00

Maximum stay

7 Days

Extendable

Forever

Last updated

05 October 2023

[rogerw]

very clear - I don't think

[PhilWakely]

12:00pm - Midnight
Midnight - 12:00pm

[pedant mode]
Aaaaarrggggghhh!
There is no such time as 12pm!
They use Midnight correctly, but 12pm means '12 hours after midday', which, in my world means 'Midnight'
[/pedant mode]

[ChrisB]

I'd disagree - surely 12am is midnight? And therefore 12pm is midday.

[GBM]

12:00pm - Midnight
Midnight - 12:00pm

[pedant mode]
Aaaaarrggggghhh!
There is no such time as 12pm!
They use Midnight correctly, but 12pm means '12 hours after midday', which, in my world means 'Midnight'
[/pedant mode]

AM I usually take as 'daylight or daytime' with PM meaning afternoon onwards.

[PhilWakely]

I'd disagree - surely 12am is midnight? And therefore 12pm is midday.

Not so technically.  See here

[PrestburyRoad]

There's a simple solution: use "12 noon" and "12 midnight", as PhilWakely and Royal Museums Greenwich recommend.

At work we used the 24-hour clock for our expense claim forms, with a day running from 00:00 to 24:00.

[bobm]

There's a simple solution: use "12 noon" and "12 midnight", as PhilWakely and Royal Museums Greenwich recommend.

At work we used the 24-hour clock for our expense claim forms, with a day running from 00:00 to 24:00.

Or should that be 00:00 to 23:59?   

[PrestburyRoad]

Or should that be 00:00 to 23:59?

Good point.  We had to use 24:00 to make clear that the claim covered the full 24 hours - this ensured that we didn't get short-changed.

[Clan Line]

Or should that be 00:00 to 23:59?

Good point.  We had to use 24:00 to make clear that the claim covered the full 24 hours - this ensured that we didn't get short-changed.

But.............surely 2400 on day 1 is 0000 on day 2 ?  My experience of 23 years in the RN was that 0000 did not exist - events started at 0001 and ended at 2359 ......................NO confusion. AM or PM totally irrelevant.

Even telling the time succintly appears to be (deliberately ?) made difficult in this day and age.  Don't get me started on GMT/UTC !! (The ultimate in lunacy ......)

[bobm]

I still get grief when I mention "five and twenty past five".  It was the way I was taught.

[stuving]

I think the problem we have with am and pm results from adding the hh:mm style of giving a time, made common by railway timetables, to the older way of telling the time in hours. If you add a part of an hour as before or after X o-clock, that still leaves the naming of hours unchanged. With the same hour number appearing twice, they were labelled as in the forenoon or afternoon; adding or subtracting hours from noon didn't come into it. AM and PM start off used by just the literate few, but become common where something short is needed, in a timetable.

Since then some more new ways of giving a time have come in: the 24-hour clock and digital displays. 24-hour times use 00:00 as midnight and 12:00 only as noon. That encourages the idea (already present) that continuity is to be expected at midday, and not at midnight. But the discontinuity at noon is still there: we switch from am to pm at 12:00, but don't switch from 12:xx to 00:xx then. Demanding continuity from 11:59 am leads to 12:00 am as noon, demanding it onward to 12:01 pm leads to 12:00 pm as noon.

Wikipepia tells us that several of the kind of US agencies that publish rules on this kind of thing have changed their rules on this is the last 20 years - but not why. Noon used to be 12:00 am in the last century, now it's 12:00 pm. I can think of one obvious reason, to do with digital clock displays.

You expect your 12-hour clock display to show am or pm, but not to manage noon or even md/mn - there is no convention for such an abbreviation anyway. When it shows 12:00 at noon, whether it adds am or pm,  what do you infer the time to be? Not exactly noon, of course, that's an instant - too short for you to see anything during it. It shows 12:00 for a whole minute so, put precisely, what it shows is its running time at that instant, rounded down to hours and minutes. Its display changes to 12:00 on the instant of 12:00, and then again on the instant of 12:01.

So in its operation, the display interval (i.e. during which it is valid) includes the starting instant, and excludes the ending one.  As a result, it becomes logical to say 12:00 noon is pm because the times during its display interval are pm - 12:00:00.0563 pm, for example.

This business of whether a time like 9:34 specifies an instant or a one-minute interval comes up more widely, and if talking to a computer (or a programmer!) you need to make clear which you mean. If you adopt the clock's interval definition of times, and apply that to noon as well, then noon (or midday) is the minute starting with instantaneous noon, so it is obviously pm. That solves the problem ...  at the cost of being very confusing!

[Clan Line]

Noon used to be 12:00 am in the last century, now it's 12:00 pm.

To be really pedantic "Noon" is not am or pm - it is midday.  It gets even more silly if you use the "12 hour" clock...............30 mins after midday is 30 mins into the 13th hour..........that just cannot be so in a 12 hour clock - if it starts at midnight it finishes at midday ! You are 30  minutes into nothingness 

I regret to say that I do find the time used on this very website somewhat annoying - at the moment it tells me that the time is 07:59 pm.....................no it isn't ! 07:59 is one minute to eight in the morning ....if you are using the 12 hr clock the opening "zero" is not needed - it just confuses.

Enough is enough - I'm off to bed ..............when I've worked out if it's bed or breakfast time