What is the purpose of parking lot tokens?

[lkn]

The parking lots associated with malls etc. tend to have a person hand out a token to everyone entering the premises and then another person who collects this token again when leaving.

 

I see this system everywhere, but I just can’t figure out what the point of it is, can anyone explain?

 

I am talking about *free* parking, so you are not billed upon leaving the parking lot (i.e. it’s not a timestamped ticket that indicates for how many hours you have used the parking lot).

 

 

Edited December 30, 2017 by lkn

[ubonjoe]

To prove you are the same person that drove the car in when leaving. It just makes it a little harder for somebody to steal your car.

[dotpoom]

On 30/12/2017 at 6:55 PM, ubonjoe said:

To prove you are the same person that drove the car in when leaving. It just makes it a little harder for somebody to steal your car.

Or Motorbike.

[007cableguy]

To prove you are the same person that drove the car in when leaving. It just makes it a little harder for somebody to steal your car.

Well that’s me done for then as I leave them inside on the dash!


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[ubonjoe]

26 minutes ago, 007cableguy said:

Well that’s me done for then as I leave them inside on the dash!

Next time put it is your pocket or bag.

[BuaBS]

Makro too , but Big C and Lotus stopped years ago with the tokens , just (working?) camera's video-ing tinted windshields.

[GreasyFingers]

38 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

Next time put it is your pocket or bag.

I do the same as 007cable guy. Thanks for the explanation.

[Autonuaq]

In the past many place had card that need to be stamped so you could park free.

That is replaced by the electronic versions and in most places they forgot to implement the proof of purchase and give all a few hours free time.

 

Beside that the token card is also try to prevent you can easier take a way a car. When lost they lookup the pictures taken and you sometimes need to provide other evidence that the car is to be allowed to use by you.

[Srikcir]

The tokens are not in themselves secure nor difficult from duplication and I rarely see a collector even look at the token being returned.

The tokens are also not unique for the vehicle exiting the parking lot. Steal a token from one vehicle whose token is in plain site and select the vehicle to be stolen.

But the system does employ some low wage people.

[chicowoodduck]

Garbage in and garbage out....lol....??

[malcoml]

The 200-500 baht if you lose that small 2 baht piece of plastic.

 

I'm sure many are lost each day.

[1FinickyOne]

I prefer the lots where they have the cameras - here is a souvenir photo of someone driving your car away... sorry for the tinted windows...

[themerg]

it's for numbers. to tell management if they need a bigger parking lot, peak hours needed for employees, and other statistics to send to  mall stores.

[Expatwannabee]

I've seen this system used in exhibitions in the UK where for "Health & Safety" reasons a maximum number of people at any one time was set. The guy at the entrance has exactly the number of tokens as the maximum. When his tokens are gone people are refused entry until tokens come back from the exit indicating people have left. To work well the tokens from the exit need to be frequently passed back to the entrance. In the case of a car park this would avoid having people driving round looking for a car parking spot when they are all in use. Having said that 2 or 3 hundred Baht for lost tokens sounds a better reason. Lol  

[LawrenceN]

On 12/30/2017 at 4:55 AM, ubonjoe said:

To prove you are the same person that drove the car in when leaving. It just makes it a little harder for somebody to steal your car.

Also to prevent people from using mall parking for long-term free parking. There's a time limit.

[lkn]

2 hours ago, LawrenceN said:

Also to prevent people from using mall parking for long-term free parking. There's a time limit.

All the tokens are the same, so how exactly is that time limit implemented/enforced?

 

[lkn]

10 hours ago, themerg said:

it's for numbers. to tell management if they need a bigger parking lot, peak hours needed for employees, and other statistics to send to  mall stores.

You do not need physical tokens to count people entering/leaving the parking lot, unless you give out semi-unique tokens (to figure out how long people stay there), but that does not seem to be the case.

 

[LawrenceN]

8 hours ago, lkn said:

All the tokens are the same, so how exactly is that time limit implemented/enforced?

 

I was thinking more of the magnetic strip cards they produce at malls like Central Festival Chiang Mai. I'm a Yank. I don't know if maybe some other English speakers call them tokens.

[impulse]

8 hours ago, lkn said:

All the tokens are the same, so how exactly is that time limit implemented/enforced?

 

All the tokens for the MRT and BTS look identical, too.  But they have RFID chips in them that carry a wealth of information.

 

I'm guessing they're collecting statistics like how many cars, what are the busy times, how long they stay, and how many parking spots are still available.

 

I can't see where they'd be able to stop a car thief unless someone takes the time to match up the token with a license plate.  Unless they have cameras that can do that automatically.  It's a brave new world we're living in.  Or a paranoid one.

 

[blackcab]

The card has a unique serial number. This is used to differentiate between users. So, for example, when you park your car in the automated car robot in Emquartier, the system uses the unique serial number to register where the robot parks your car. When you scan your card to retrieve your car, the reverse happens.

 

I'm sure there are various systems in use, but in Emquartier, when you press the button to dispense a card from the machine, a camera in the card dispensing machine takes a photo of your face. Another camera takes a photo of the front of the car, including the registration number.

 

Upon presenting your card at the exit, all photos are displayed to the operator. Whether they take any notice of them is another matter however.

[lkn]

2 hours ago, blackcab said:

The card has a unique serial number. This is used to differentiate between users. So, for example, when you park your car in the automated car robot in Emquartier […]

Maybe I should have attached a photo to my post.

 

So a lot of parking lots for *motorbikes* have a simple segmented metal fence with one of the segments missing and two guys sitting in chairs, one facing incoming riders, the other outgoing riders.

 

For incoming riders, they are handed a simple token, and outgoing riders hand back the token.

 

There are no robots, cameras, RFID readers, etc. I don’t even think there is electricity.

 

So the explanation given in the first reply, that this token is simply to “prove” that you were the guy who parked the motorbike, seems to be the most likely one.

 

[blackcab]

1 hour ago, lkn said:

Maybe I should have attached a photo to my post.

 

So a lot of parking lots for *motorbikes* have a simple segmented metal fence with one of the segments missing and two guys sitting in chairs, one facing incoming riders, the other outgoing riders.

 

For incoming riders, they are handed a simple token, and outgoing riders hand back the token.

 

There are no robots, cameras, RFID readers, etc. I don’t even think there is electricity.

 

So the explanation given in the first reply, that this token is simply to “prove” that you were the guy who parked the motorbike, seems to be the most likely one.

 

If you described the parking lot fully in your first post rather than your last post my reply would have been different.

 

The parking lot you are referring to is run by a farang who needs to employ four Thai staff to qualify for his extension of stay.

 

There is no point to the tokens and no point to employing the staff either.

[jackdd]

On 4.1.2018 at 10:24 PM, blackcab said:

 

If you described the parking lot fully in your first post rather than your last post my reply would have been different.

 

The parking lot you are referring to is run by a farang who needs to employ four Thai staff to qualify for his extension of stay.

 

There is no point to the tokens and no point to employing the staff either.

 

I think you should go to places for the working class more often, not only the "hiso" places like emquartier

Nearly every Big C i've been to across the country has the system of: You drive in somebody hands you a plastic card, you drive out you have to give it back, nothing scanned, it basically just means that you drove in a vehicle so you can drive one out, doesn't have to be the same

In the little bit more advanced places they store your license plate in the system too so they could actually check if you are driving out the same vehicle that you drove in, but i doubt they ever really do this. In Central in Udon they have "tickets" instead of plastic cards, where they write down your license plate and which you have to give back, but i never saw somebody checking the license plate.

In my opinion the whole point is to make it slightly more difficult to steal a vehicle, but i think theft of vehicles, especially in parking places like this is a big problem in thailand, so it isn't really useful