Reinventing Parking: US Parking Reform 101 (four short videos)

Hi all, here is a great little video series from the Metropolitan Transportation Commision and picked off the good Reinventing Parking blog.  Enjoy.

Reinventing Parking: US Parking Reform 101 (four short videos): Want a crash course on parking reform? Then check out these short videos on parking policy and parking reform. There are four, and each is...

More Revenue - Its a Great Thing for Everyone

I am constantly concerned by the lack of drive for local body politicians in Councils and Health Boards that will not see, nor do anything about, the benefits of paid parking in their institutions. 

The benefits are more revenue to proved more opportunity for improvements, better machinery and equipment and mostly, an ability to drive better behaviours in parking habits.

Hospitals have the best opportunity to improve their ‘lot’ in life as the extra revenue will always help out a hospital, yet they cannot put up a car park building to house the demand for parking from the public, patients and staff.  A parking building pays for itself and doesn’t need to come out of ‘vote health’ at all. Yet one of the biggest gripes about hospitals is a lack of parking.  There are so many ways that technology and modern parking methodologies can support the vulnerable so that they are looked after in a paid parking environment, but these are getting ignored.

Council’s can support the growth of a city, in a small way, by how it organises and operates its parking.  Key support should be given to maximising the use of every bay the Council owns and operates.  It cannot do that with ‘abstract’ parking prices.  You cannot affect positively the activity in an area if you charge the same price in a busy area as a slow area.  We have seen recently Auckland’s response with vast swathes of city linked together with the same price for parking, assuming that occupancy, supply and demand are all similar.  I don’t think so.  It’s the response of politicians getting involved in something they have a passing knowledge of.

These organisations can drive the growth in good habits by adopting a modern parking methodology that allows for a constantly adjusting (within parameters), dynamic network of parking resources that responds to the changing balance of supply and demand in the localised area.  The by-product is increased revenue and that’s a good by-product to have.

Kevin Warwood

Time For Choice from our Parking Conference

For many years I have been going to parking conferences and I look forward to them as well.  In many parts of the world and in many of them I have been astounded at the changing technologies that are shaping how we do things in the parking world, different companies that have come and gone and the wide range of methodologies that have been worked and re-worked (or even re-packaged) in an attempt to do things better. 

The common theme through all of these conferences, admittedly run by professional conference companies, is that they are wide in variety, topics and speakers.  The New Zealand Parking Conference, in Dunedin this year, has to be the narrowest of scope of programmes I have seen in a long time.  This is a programme entirely focussed on Enforcement, while Operations, Technology, Management, Valet, Marketing have been left out in the cold and untouched.

Look at the up coming British Parking association Conference programme on 27^th September 2012,

• The Parking Charges Debate
• Sustainable Towns
• Town Teamwork
• Parking Strategy
• Understanding Parking Behaviour
• Innovation and Technology Focus
• Maximising the Evening and Night Time Economy
• High Streets of the Future
• Accessible Towns
• Understanding and Exceeding Customer Expectations

This is a great programme and it covers all aspects of parking, except Enforcement, which is covered by the speakers they have.

Look at the October 15^th National Parking Association convention’s programme.  They run a choice of six tracks to mix and match from,

• Certified Parking Professional (CPP) - education
• Peak Performance - Smart Cities: The Next Wave in Transportation and Parking Management
• Technology - Smart Cities: The Future of Citywide Parking Management.
• Finance - Driving Performance: The Realities of Revenue Control, People, Process & Technology
• Valet - How To Deliver White Glove Service to Meet Rising Front Line Service Expectations
• Management & Operations - The Big 3: Revenue, Maintenance & Management

Nothing in here about Enforcement but they also cover topics in Airport and Hotel parking and have a valet Olympics for fun.

NZPA programme is,

• WOF & Licensing Enforcing
• Kerbside Discretions/Interactions/Explanations
• CCS Disability Action - update on new mobility cards
• Ministry of Transport Updates
• History of the Number Plate

I am thinking that the NZPA conference is so narrowly focussed that it has become a Council only jaunt and since Councils have a small market share, in the bigger cities anyway, they ignore the majority of the car parking market.

I hear that there is a Healthcare Parking conference planned for Christchurch in December this year, to coincide with the re-build of Christchurch.  Maybe there will be specialist conferences pop up to fill the large gap left by NZPA.  There is already an airport conference for Australasia that has a parking component in it, as parking is a huge part of airport operations these days.  Other specialist conferences should be welcomed as the topics mentioned above must be covered regularly in New Zealand.

I think there is a need for a Parking conference in New Zealand, that will cover all of the topics of parking, offer some education and give participants, and that means the private sector as well, a well earned choice of topics.  This will only create a closer and better performing sector that will deliver better and more consistent standards to the public of New Zealand.

Kevin Warwood

"How big is the global parking industry in revenue?" was the question asked of me at a recent cocktail party. I had no idea. Can anyone give me an estimate?