Councillor Ben Taylor and two council officers will travel to Auckland from November 12 to 14, joined by City of Ballarat’s CEO Justine Linley. 

The delegation are set to meet with City of Auckland and Transport Auckland, as well as local technology companies to learn from Auckland’s introduction of flexible parking technology. 

A visit to Waste to Energy Limited on the city’s outskirts will provide more information on the fledgling technology’s implementation and how to manage public expectation. 

It comes after the city signed a non-binding agreement for a $300 million waste to energy facility in Ballarat’s west with Malaysian Resources Corporation Berhad. 

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As a sustainability portfoilo councillor, Cr Taylor said the cities had done “similar work” on the current CBD parking angst and waste.

“Parking in Ballarat is one of the biggest things we’re going to do as a city,” he said. “In the end, better to be on the ground there, see how it works and how they’re dealing with public transport, and understand the strategies they used to make [paid parking] work as a city.”

The municipality will pay less than $1500 per attendee.  

When The Courier spoke to Auckland Transport spokesperson Mark Hannan in May, he said the New Zealand city’s model “manages the turnover through pricing”. 

Auckland, a city of more than 1.5 million residents, implemented zoned parking in May 2015, with prices between $NZD1 (92 cents) and $NZD8 ($7.35) per hour. Each park is also free for the first 10 minutes.

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The key difference is that areas in Auckland become significantly more expensive if you choose to park there for more than two hours. 

“In these zones you get two hours parking which encourages visitors and customers but discourages all-day parking.The all-day parkers have either found other options or moved further out,” Mr Hannan said.