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For New Year a million people crammed into New York's Times Square to celebrate the arrival of 2009 and at points over the festive period, shopping in towns across the UK felt similarly crowded.
While finding the perfect present is never easy, for many the most frustrating part of the process is the scrum to find a town centre parking space in the first place.
Christmas is now a distant memory and with people watching their cash more closely than ever the shopping rush has subsided and spaces are becoming easier to come by. But there is no doubt that parking in a prime location, even if its only for an hour, can be frustrating and is often expensive.
While it generates revenue for local councils it can't be good news for town centre trade with shoppers more inclined to visit out-of-town retail parks where parking is plentiful and free. To combat this, in Kettering the local council has introduced a number of pop-and-shop parking spaces where for an hour shoppers can park in designated town centre bays for the nominal fee of 10p.
While I would agree that parking can be unnecessarily expensive and enforcement sometimes over zealous, what I can't condone is drivers who cheat the system by staying for longer than their ticket allows or not buying a ticket in the first place. This is actually a bigger issue in France than in the UK which is why the French are beginning to install 'smart meters'.
The technology is innovative because it monitors individual spaces, detecting the presence of vehicles and alerting police if drivers stay over their allotted time. The meters create magnetic fields capable of registering the metal mass of vehicles and have a direct computer link to local police stations.
There is some margin for error as cars are allowed 20 minutes of free parking, however if they stay longer, the smart meter sends a message to a police control room, which alerts officers through their mobile telephones.
While it is unlikely that a similar system in the UK would be enforced by the police, the technology could open up a host of solutions to parking bugbears, in particular a system where drivers pay electronically and only for the time they park. There is nothing worse than getting to the ticket machine, only to realise that you don't have enough change.
A system where motorists pay with a personal identification number incorporated into their mobile telephones would be a significant step forward. Councils should do everything that they can to make parking affordable, but if they can't cut costs, at least provide a level of convenience that takes some of the stress out of the shopping.
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