How to deal with SABA railway station parking tickets

SABA manage railway station car parks for a number of railway networks including West Midland Trains, London Northwestern Rail, and Transport for London. They were formerly known as Indigo parking, but rebranded to SABA. As per our railway station parking ticket guide, private tickets issued on railway land are completely different to regular private parking tickets. This is because the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 does not apply. The implication of this is that the parking company cannot rely on keeper liability and they do not have to offer an independent appeal.

As such, if you were to receive a SABA parking ticket at a railway station you must take a different approach. The first point to note is that if there is no keeper liability, then SABA can only pursue the DRIVER of the vehicle for payment. The keeper has no liability or any responsibility to tell them who the driver was.

First of all, if you have a PCN stuck to the window of your car – ignore it. Wait for them to send a Notice to Keeper. The NTK is a letter that they send to the registered keeper of the vehicle since they do not know who was driving at the time.

If an NTK is received, then the keeper should respond with an appeal to the ticket and importantly REFUSE to name who the driver was at the time. SABA will most likely refuse the appeal and they won’t offer you an independent appeal, because they do not have to on railway land.

SABA may then refer you to their debt collection partners, such as ZZPS. Remember, debt collection agencies are not bailiffs. They are not court appointed and have no special powers. The worst thing they can do is write you a letter with plenty of red ink! The keeper can reply to the debt collector or ignore. The key point is stringing the process out.

The key point is when SIX MONTHS have elapsed from the ticket issue date. Since the parking ticket is issued under railway byelaws, if they wanted to take enforcement action it would need to be done in the magistrates court. After 6 months, their ability to do that time out. And even then, there is no incentive for SABA to refer the case to magistrates since they still do not know who was driving, AND any penalty would be collected by the government – not SABA or the railway!