Just don’t pay. I stopped paying for street parking a long time ago (around the time they started insisting on apps). You get a ticket once and awhile but it all works out.
Mail in a check a few times a year and park whenever you want.
Valid, though I expect this being down the block from the festival theatre, it probably was being actively patrolled. I was a bit shaken by a prominent sign threatening a $400 fine for illegal parking, though having just checked the website for the City of Stratford, it looks like the standard municipal parking ticket is $40 if paid promptly, so the $400 fine was probably specific to parking in the theatre's dropoff zone or fire access or something.
All that say, I think you're probably right... next time instead of using my phone to install and sign up for a parking app, I'll just use it to check what the fine is and wipe hands on pants.
I agree that in this case its VERY likely to be fraud.
However, there are many jobs where you might be stuck at work. Being at work == getting paid. Thats not really that shocking of a thing. My wife's dad worked at a children's 'training school' (kid jail) and they often had lock downs or were legally required to have certain number of people on site for certain operations. So he might be there and simply couldn't leave, but might not be 'working'. He was paid for those hours, which I think is pretty reasonable.
That sounds like an excellent solution for locals.
But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.
It was the locals who decided that it was worth the extra hassle and expense (and that doing the same thing at St. Margrethen wasn't).
There was probably a referendum at some point. :)
I am not sure whether the stats are comparable, but I read somewhere that about half of Deutsche Bahn trains are late into Basel (and there are many trains a day). While I don't know this for a fact, it wouldn't surpise me if patterns of delays are relatively predictable and can be planned for.
There was some talk about just ending those routes at Basel at some far-away point in the future, but I'm not sure if that's something that's been decided.
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But it also seems very inefficient because of the need to keep rolling stock in reserve, ready to go just in case. That’s a lot of maintenance, staff, and machine time to burn.
Considering how often the Deutsche Bahn isn't on time (I say this as a German), the SBB should have use for this rolling stock nearly all the time - so it's rather efficient. :-)
That inefficiency is the very reason, why the Swiss have a more reliable network. The DB used to have all these inefficiency too and was reliable. Then they decided to cut all that and that's the current state now.
Personally I think that there is no "real inefficiency", the money just achieves something else, that you don't consider the goal yet. Sometimes that is making someone else richer, sometimes that is making the system more reliable in ways you couldn't plan.
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