Forest removes dozens of parking meters to save maintenance costs

The Brussels municipality of Forest is removing 74 of its 500 parking meters by the end of the year, hoping to save money on maintenance costs while still collecting parking fees through a mobile app.

The municipality said it needed to tighten its belt amid a delicate financial situation, RTBF reports.

It comes as new figures show almost half of parking meters in the Brussels region cost more money to maintain than they generate in revenue.

“It’s also the promise we made to residents for this legislative term,” said alderman Flo Flamme (Groen), noting that each department is being called upon to contribute to money-saving efforts.

According to regional agency Parking.brussels, each parking metre costs €2,600 per year in operating and maintenance costs.

“We collect the parking money and then pay 85% of the amount back to the municipalities, but these municipalities also have to pay the annual fee for each machine,” a spokesperson said.

By removing 74 fewer machines, Forest will save €192,400 per year.

“We asked Parking.brussels to carry out a detailed study based on three criteria: profitability, usage and coverage within a reasonable radius - a maximum of 100 metres to find a parking meter,” Flamme said.

Based on that analysis, the idea was to simplify the network.

“We are well aware that parking meters are a cost for the municipality,” said Flamme.

“If they’re rarely used, there’s no point in keeping them. After drawing up the list, we found that the average distance between two parking meters in the future will be 96 metres.

"We also took into account the fact that we would not remove a parking meter if, in order to find the next one, you had to cross a major road. This will not change much for people, as the machines being removed were rarely used."

Parking.brussels notes that there is no legal maximum distance between two parking meters.

The removal of the meters does not mean any changes to parking rules, regulations or costs. Signage will be added in the areas where machines have been removed to direct people to pay by either using an app on their smartphone or walking to the closest meter.

Parking.brussels said that today, around 60% of all parking payments it collects are made via the mobile app, rather than using traditional parking meters.

That income will continue to be shared with municipalities.

Parking.brussels is responsible for 4,200 on-street parking meters in 13 of Brussels' 19 municipalities - excluding Brussels-City, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Uccle, Etterbeek and Saint-Josse.

According to figures recently seen by La Libre Belgique, about half of parking meters managed by Parking.brussels are not profitable or are even loss-making due to high maintenance costs and vandalism.

Parking.brussels aims to gradually reduce the number of parking meters in all of the municipalities that it manages, potentially saving up to €5 million per year.