Mainstreet Tauranga manager Kirby Weis says the Tauranga City Council move to use sensors on inner city car parks is to maintain meter revenue because occupancy is down.
The new sensors use radio technology to monitor central city car parking by detecting how long a car has been in a park and then transmits to operators when a vehicle has overstayed.

Mainstreet Tauranga manager Kirby Weis says increasing traffic is the key to improving the city centre, and these new parking sensors are not helping.

In June SunLive reported the city council's parking fees were down $700,000 because of fewer people parking in the CBD. When using parking as a guide to economic activity, this indicates the central business district has been in the doldrums for 12 months.
"They should consider how the businesses are feeling with the low occupancy," says Kirby.
"If car parks have low occupancy it means less people are in town."
Tauranga businesses are disappointed and frustrated that in hard economic times, the council is looking at devices that will help them increase parking enforcement and move people out of city centre car parks.
Parking is a council controlled asset and Mainstreet Tauranga and the downtown Tauranga businesses have no control over its management," says Kirby.
"We can only implore council to put controls and measures in place to ensure the economic viability of the city centre is not impeded by stringent enforcement and inflexible parking plans.
"Unfortunately to date we have not been given any assurance that such measures or action plans exist."