A third of the tickets were for expired warrants and registrations, each valued at $200. Their much higher penalty dwarfs the fines issued for pay and display and time zone infringements, which totalled only $550,000.
This figure shrank to $228,000 once motorists' explanations for why they shouldn't pay had been taken into account.
The council's decision to double the period of grace from one month to two months for expired warrants and registrations helped reduce the original $2.4 million worth of fines to $1.27 million.
Tickets issued for expired registrations hugely outnumbered expired warrants by a margin of four to one.
Central city parking infringements were predictably dominated by 10,800 pay and display tickets. There was a further 3010 tickets issued to people who exceeded time zone restrictions where there were no pay and display machines - mainly in the early avenues.
Martin Parkes, the council's transportation operations manager, said revenue from fines contributed nearly a third of the $4.5 million city-wide parking costs. These included the loan and operating costs for the two downtown parking buildings, staff costs and pay and display machine costs. H
e said the council's policy was that ratepayers did not subsidise the parking operation.
There had been an overall drop in revenue, totalling up to $400,000, from the decisions to double the period of grace for warrants and registrations, rationalise the hourly rates for downtown parking and the introduction of free parking on Saturday mornings.