the essential
Residents of a building on Allée des Soupirs, near the Grand Rond in Toulouse, were fined for unpaid parking while they were parked on their private spaces. The town hall explains that the problem comes from the configuration of the premises and a more “efficient” version of the Lapi on-board camera system. The malfunction was identified and the situation rectified.
“Once I’m willing, but when it starts again, it’s annoying and grotesque”… Jean-Claude Laibe is very angry. This Toulouse resident who lives in an HLM building in the Grand Rond along Allée des Soupirs has just received, for the second time in a year, a fine to be paid without delay for unpaid parking on public roads. A shame for this honest taxpayer since the parking space in which he parks every day is a private space for which he pays rent of 17 euros per month. “For 10 years, I have had space numbered 232,” he explains, “but obviously the on-board video technology, as sophisticated as it is, does not make the difference with resident parking. This time, I was fined at the beginning of December, like last year and it's really painful, even if we are finally heard, to have to do all the formalities for a complaint. If we take plums even when we are at home, we don't know. 'more comes out'. Whose fault, what fault? Jean-Claude readily admits that the configuration of the premises can be confusing even for artificial intelligence. “In fact, the spaces reserved for the residents of our residence are perpendicular to the other public spaces on the Allée des Soupirs and I have a parking meter barely three meters from my car. Which means that when the sulphator passes, it does not can't make the distinction.
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When the cameras go beyond the limits
A dysfunction confirmed by Émilion Esnault, the elected official in charge of the municipal police and therefore the minutes, who also points out the specificity of the perimeter in question. “There is this proximity of the two parking spaces, but there is also the new Lapi system, which has just come into operation, more efficient in detecting fraudsters in the areas covered by the on-board cameras”. In this case, the said cameras went a little beyond the limits, since a dozen undue reports were recorded in the sector. “We have identified the problem and the situation has been regularized,” assures Émilion Esnault. He also specifies that in the rest of the city the new Lapi system works very well and that it is not called into question.
Jean-Claude Laibe has done his accounts. “I still pay more per year than resident parking, i.e. 204 euros compared to 135 euros,” he notes. Another reason not to be bothered by administrative slip-ups.
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The fact remains that paid parking, which brings in some 9.5 million euros per year to the municipality, continues to expand. Maxime Boyer, the elected official in charge of travel, announces that the Amidonniers-Héraclès-Sébastopol sector, one of the last suburbs still “free”, will switch to resident mode at the start of next year. Before other extensions, notably around the future administrative city in Jolimont. One thing is certain: the car in town is a good money pump.
