I would like to clarify some of the points raised by Mr Wyatt regarding his experience of evening parking in York (Letters, January 2). At 7.08pm the tariff for a non-resident to park until 8.30am the following day is £2, not £3.90 as suggested.

The most likely explanation for the disparity is that Mr Wyatt misread the tariff board and did not see that an evening tariff is in operation after 6pm. The software in the machine is programmed to recognise the coins that the customer puts in and try to work out what they want to buy.

Putting £3.90 in, as Mr Wyatt did, the machine would calculate a payment of £2 for the overnight parking and use the remaining £1.90 to pay for one hour's parking the following day - a charge of £1.30. The balance of 60p would have been taken as overpayment as the machines don't give change. The ticket would be issued with an expiry time of 08.30am the following day plus one hour ie 9.30am. The date of expiry would also have been printed on the ticket.

It would appear that Mr Wyatt's ticket expired at 9.27am the following day, not 9.27pm, as the ticket machines use the 24-hour clock. If Mr Wyatt would like to return his ticket to me at 9 St Leonard's Place, York, YO1 7ET, I can clarify whether this explanation is correct.

Peter Evely,

Head of Network Management,

City of York Council.

Updated: 09:07 Friday, January 06, 2006