I am heartened by the recent letters by Mr Ho Yew Kee (Reserve higher floors in multi-storey carpark for season parking, March 26) and Mr Tan Kay Khoo (No compelling reason to reserve lower floors for season parking, March 28), on the parking allocation for season parking and its environmental impact.

I am sure many drivers in Singapore have been frustrated by having to drive past rows and rows of empty red parking spaces while going up a multi-storey carpark in a public housing estate to park at a white space at the higher levels.

This very often happens in the late mornings and afternoons, when most season-parking holders are out.

The amount of carbon dioxide produced is substantial if one thinks about the energy required to move a heavy object like a vehicle up many storeys, and that this action happens many times every day in carparks all over Singapore.

It is understandable, however, that season-parking holders will not be happy if they do not have access to the lower levels.

I suggest a balanced approach that considers the interests of both season-parking and hourly parking drivers.

At every carpark level, there can be 50 per cent red spaces and 50 per cent white ones.

This can be varied according to the number of season-parking subscriptions in a multi-storey carpark.

For example, if there is an 80 per cent take-up rate of season parking in a particular carpark, then every level of that carpark can have approximately 80 per cent red parking spaces and 20 per cent whitespaces.

For this system to work, season-parking holders cannot park in a white space in their designated carparks, just like an hourly parking car cannot park in a red space.

Otherwise, all the parking spaces, both red and white, at the lower levels might be taken up by season-parking holders and there will be many empty red spaces on the higher floors that cannot be used by hourly parking drivers.

The existing scheme of allowing parking in certain red spaces from 7am to 7pm should still be kept, to maximise the number of parking spaces during the daytime.

Season-parking holders must remember that they are also hourly parking drivers whenever they park their cars in other carparks, so a give-and-take mentality is needed. This is fairer to both groups of drivers.

Tan Lam Seng