Parking it Here: January 2013

Thursday, January 31, 2013

How to Get 100% Occupancy - The Parking World's El Dorado

New Article in 'Parking Today Magazine'.

Is 100% occupancy possible? You bet it is. Imagine driving past a car park building and seeing a variable message sign that states, ‘$1 = 60 mins’. Then, the sign changes to ‘$1 = 30 mins’. Car Parking operators are manufacturers of parking opportunities. It could be a product that is sold as a ‘slot’ in time rather than a plot of land. Think about parking as a slot in a manufacturing process and you may be able to get higher occupancies.

Link to: How to Get 100% Occupancy - The Parking World's El Dorado

Enjoy.

Kevin Warwood

The views stated in this blog are personal and may not be the views of my employer.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Northland Hospital Car Parking and Roading Review

The Northland District Health Board has approved, in principle, paid car parking to ensure that they can continue to provide adequate secure parking in a controlled environment.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1301/S00479/car-parking-and-roading-review.htm

Thursday, January 24, 2013

300 more parking spaces planned at University Hospital of North Staffordshire

A great move that should be applauded.

Hospitals have an obligation to allow the public to gain full access to the site and must do that by providing good car park facilities. People generally don't go to Hospitals on the bus, as it is not a leisure pursuit or to the office. it is usually an emergency or an event that means the people are thinking about the Hospital and not the transport choice. Car parks are also mostly self fundable. Time for other Hospital Boards to follow suit.

Kevin Warwood

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/300-parking-spaces-planned-hospital/story-17929100-detail/story.html

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Christchurch CBD All Day parking fees increase

Christchurch's on-street, 'All Day' parking fees are set to increase, decrease, remain the same and revert back to normal hourly use.

After a long period of monitoring the use of the 213 parking spaces, spread out all over Christchurch’s CBD, initially set out as All Day parking (on-street, after the earthquakes as there were no buildings left to park in), it was found that the usage had changed markedly.

Many All Day parking spaces were now over used, while some remained the same, and some had lower usage than was desired. Some parking, around the Casino, was reverting back to normal casual parking as the usage was very high and short term, not what the All Day parking was designed for. Prices were designed to respond to those changes in use.

These changes are designed to support the rebuild as the prices are designed to push users to car parks that are not being well used, to stop circulation, to stop over use and to encourage better utilisation of the parking resource.

The prices will change for the 28th January 2013.

Christchurch CBD parking fees increase - Latest National News - Keep up with Newstalk ZB

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Mobile Parking Lot Van Fail

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Rivalry - Improves Parking Performance - Parking Today

Hi all,

Here is an article published in the magazine Parking Today (Jan 13 edition).

The general premise is that parking machines and new phone technology are merely portals to get the revenue out of the parking space and into your bank accounts. It doesn't matter how many bells and whistles the meters and software programs have, the prime purpose is to funnel the funds to the bank account. So why don't we demand competition in that space?

Read on......

Rivalry - Improves Parking Performance - Parking Today

Kevin Warwood

The views and opinions stated here are personal.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

'Go-for-Goldilocks' - Free Parking Not the Best Way to Attract Shoppers?

'Go-for-Goldilocks'

Parking is not the main reason people go shopping, in fact it is well down the list, but retailers would make you think that it is the only thing that is between them and oblivion.

The best option, is to 'Go-for-Goldilocks'. That is change your pricing and/or restrictions to get the right number of cars in the right number of spaces.

You may have read a previous blog where I mentioned that if you have an overload situation, as you do in many suburban malls, having cars circulating in car parks does NOT increase the number of shoppers; you have shoppers plus motorists waiting to be shoppers, and hating the experience being provided.

The best way to approach parking for shoppers is to get the time restriction right and then to enforce that. You can get more shoppers by turning your parking bays over faster, not by increased queuing.

Free Parking Not the Best Way to Attract Shoppers?

Kevin Warwood

Two-Way Street Networks: A Possible Lesson for Christchurch?

Christchurch has been battling with the option to revert to 'two-way' on the one way system or to keep the status quo with the existing 'one-way' system, under the government led blue print for the new re-built city. There may be some lessons here in a paper from Vikash V. Gayah of University of California, Berkeley. He says two-way networks are often more efficient than one-way networks, as they can, in some cases, serve trips at a higher rate.

http://www.uctc.net/access/41/access41_twoway.shtml

All items on this blog are a personal opinion and do not reflect the opinions of any employer.

Will China’s Vehicle Population Grow Even Faster than Forecasted

http://www.uctc.net/access/41/access41_chinafleet.shtml

Parking Art

I must share some great 'Art' I have found over the years from parking related topics.

Before I start, I have to say that none of these are by me, as I am by no means a competent photographer, but I do admire the skills of these artists. This is just a collection of shots that I have found while browsing the web. Having said that, the shot 666 was done by a photography class on the top floor of the Victoria Street car park building and has Auckland in the back drop.

Enjoy.

Kevin Warwood