Dunedin City Council's ''pragmatic approach'' to ticketing and warning infringing motorists is improving parking compliance, council regulatory services group manager Kevin Thompson says.
The council had a policy of asking infringing motorists to move on and issuing written warnings in an effort to educate and improve compliance, Mr Thompson said.
The council adopted the policy during the 2012 financial year, which saw a 12.2% decrease in the number of tickets issued.
The decline - from 75,780 tickets in the 2011 financial year to 66,568 in the following year - had remained ''fairly consistent'' since, Mr Thompson said.
For the nine months ended March 2014, the council's parking wardens had issued 52,122 tickets and 516 written warnings.
Verbal warnings were also issued and could amount to anywhere between five and 20 a day, although statistics were not kept, he said.
The more than 50,000 tickets issued in this financial year so far equated to 190.2 per day compared with 189.9 per day for last year and 181.9 per day for the year before.
Mr Thompson predicted tickets for this financial year might be below those issued last year as ''things have been a lot quieter out there lately for parking''.
The number of tickets waived had also remained relatively static.
The council's policy for waiving tickets came under fire last month when it emerged it had ticketed Dunedin woman Kerry-Lee Charlton while she and her partner were in Dunedin Hospital while she was undergoing an emergency Caesarean section.
She requested the $70 fine be remitted because of her circumstances and the fact she believed her partner had paid some money into the parking meter.
Inquiries from the Otago Daily Times revealed her car was parked in a P30 and no money was paid into the meter.
