How do you deal with too much parking?

It's a conundrum facing many Cities.  How do you get 85% occupancy when
there are less than 60% of all spaces actually being used?

This is a question I ask here in Christchurch, New Zealand.  The context
is that after the earthquakes, there are now a large number of vacant
sites, awaiting developments, that are being used as car parks.  There
are 1,500 cars parking in 2,700 private off-street sites (all open-air
lots) in the CBD as no buildings are open yet.  So how do you control
parking to 85% when there aren't enough vehicles to get past 56%?

 

 The answer is to break the city into zones and manage the occupancies in
the zone separately, then set a wider 'working' occupancy goal of about
60% to 85%.  Don't use too narrow a 'band' around the 85% target, as
it's almost impossible to achieve at this stage where there is a lot of
vacancy.  Zone management then gives you the ability to relocate
vehicles around the city by pricing to affect the local activity level
in that local zone, for the purpose of maximising the utilisation of the
parking resource.  You may be able to offer higher prices where there is
a PT choice (by removing supply), higher prices where there is over-use
such as on the western edge of the Christchurch CBD today.  You can also
start to remove spaces for the purposes of better landscaping or other
mode changes.

 

Gap Filler Project - Christchurch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We also know that we need to create and administer an operational system
that will be flexible enough, over time, to deal with the current
situation where there is too much supply; then change to a system where
the developments have occurred and we have a under-supply.

The final step if you like, is where the city is fully back to normal
and congestion is occurring and mode shift needs a bit of a boost, as
most cities require a mode shift in their transport plans these days.
To get the required mode shift, we may need to put in the plans that a
desire that public car parks are all managed to a guide of 85% but also
private car park resources (don't know how to enforce it yet) are also
managed to 85%.  That will see a large reduction in extra car parks, the
combining of car parks by neighbours and the use of car parks for other
uses.

That's the theory anyway.

 

Kevin Warwood

Lord Kelvin said ...........

Lord Kelvin said, "If you can not measure it, you can not improve it."  I must congratulate the New Plymouth City Council for taking a pragmatic approach to parking in the city and not falling into the trap of putting plasters on the symptoms.  Measure what you have happening first, then make some changes.

New Plymouth City Council has a simple parking operation that is combined with the enforcement wing of the activity.  Some cities have strayed into the area of thinking their parking operation, is the enforcement wing.  Not so.  The parking operation comes first (however it has been designed or not!), then the enforcement of the parking operation must occur.  Enforcement supports operations.

So it is important to understand exactly what is going on out there by monitoring the signals form on-street, off-street, public, private and institutional parking.  In this case, it seems that the time restriction may in fact prove to be too short to suit the businesses in that neighbourhood, but they wouldn’t have known that if they hadn’t taken time to collect the data correct and then see what the flavour of the feedback from the public looked like, to the enforcement of the old rules.  Bear in mind, this is just technology making the existing rules more accurate.

With the sensor technology, they can now review the average length of stay and the turnover of customers.  This will start to build a picture, in each neighbourhood, of the requirements of each business area or precinct, and that may be to amend the current time restrictions.  Remember the purpose of parking is primarily to support and facilitate economic activity and growth.  This means that access to the city for retail, leisure, well-being and commercial activities, must be optimised, or just the right amount of cars in just the right amount of spaces.

One method of doing this is to divide the city into zones large enough to affect the main parking load or driver in the area, and then create parking time restrictions (or prices) that will suit and be synchronous with the activities in the area.  What may happen is that the retailers will want longer time restrictions until they get to the point where the volume of customers falls through a lack of turnover in the car parks, then they will want the time restrictions smaller until their customers can’t stay long enough to make big purchases.  It’s a balancing act the Council is trying to achieve, but with the collection of accurate data, they will be able to start somewhere and then move in the right direction.

New Plymouth City Council will get a bit of stick as they go through the process of collecting the data and then making the improvements that will ensure the local businesses will be supported, but the improvements will help support the activities of the local area.  To close with a pun, Lord Kelvin would be interested in the work being done to measure the temperature of car park use here.

Kevin Warwood

Read More Here

These views are my own.

Parking Operations Design - A Lesson

I had an interesting email conversation with a General Manager (names removed of course) of a major parking equipment provider the other day. It started out as a discussion on the article about supply and demand economics, or actually the theory of Constraints, and how to get to 100% occupancy. The discussion ended up with a summary of how I see the purpose of parking and how the purpose of parking serves the city. This is a sort of step by step guide to designing a city’s parking operation. These tips will also give you the ability to micro-manage parking.

 

Parking operations systems can be simple. Here are some of the basics;

 

• The purpose of parking is to support economic activity. An economist will argue that even a visit to a park, University or Hospital has an economic impact. Christchurch City Council's Long Term Plan has some wording around 'Community Outcomes' for parking, but in the end, they all add up to mean, at its highest level, supporting economic activity.
• Measure what is happening on the street. On-street parking is the bellwether of all activity in the city. Its the nervous system of the body of the city. If construction or retail picks up, it will be reflected on the street. If the area becomes dead, the street will tell you. You can measure the fact that a new off-street car park opened by the data you get from the on-street machines, and then you amend your prices. Measuring what is happening on the street will tell you how to approach your pricing. You also don’t need to purchase sensors to start with. You can measure occupancy and utilization (Utilization is occupancy over a period of a day). 
• Set up zones or precincts of the right size and shape to affect the parking load or activity in the local area, be it a mall, a university or a commercial district. Christchurch has 16 (draft) zones. Having zones that are too big creates abstract pricing. Abstract prices will support activity somewhere in the city at some stage, but will be too high in some and too low in others. Prices must be just right ... all the time. Having smaller zones allows you to micro-manage your pricing and modern technology can now help you to micro-manage parking. Zones also allow you to set zoned permanent on-street parking or residential parking in certain zones only.  
• Link pricing to occupancy. Managing your demand to 85% occupancy, not higher or lower. This will make sure that the retailers are happy as you can't get more customers into a retailers car park than the capacity of a car park. Extra cars are just people circulating and not shopping. Retailers rarely understand this. Retail's issue is one of capacity and management of that capacity, not price. If shoppers don't come, drop the price. If they do and its overcrowded, raise the price. You still cant get more customers in than the number of car parks, so price is irrelevant other than to maintain occupancy. 
• Enforce to support parking operations. The purpose of enforcement is to support the parking operation's designed plan. If the plan is not right, it only hinders economic activity because too many tickets are issued. One of my mantras is 'your level of parking enforcement is equal to the level of mis-understanding of your parking operation'. Enforcement also gives you some good signals that the parking operation is not right, by the number of tickets being issued or a change in the number of tickets being issued. 
• Get the parking decisions closer to the operation. Politicians generally only know about price when they deal with parking. They don't understand the other issues that make up the price. I'm not saying they don't want to know. They are busy people. So education is best so the best decisions are based on occupancy, not price.

  If you manage to get all of this past the politicians, you will have a fully functioning, parking operation that is responsive to the many detected changes in the city's on-street activities..... and it will support economic activity. Simple. The perfect parking operation is one designed to read and respond to on-street, off-street, public, private and institutional parking signals.

  

Technology must fit into this plan. The decision on the type of technology to buy is the last decision made. We sometimes get our priorities back to front by purchasing equipment without understanding the design of the parking operation nor the purpose of the parking, first.

  The key understanding that must be made here is that this system will work in Hospitals, Airports, commercial structures, on-street and shopping malls. When run well, it will enhance the customer experience and not hinder it. It will ensure greater use of the car parks and manage the peaks.

 

The bigger key message is that we often don't design our parking operations well in the first place nor do we re-design it when it needs help.

 
 

Kevin Warwood

Parking Operations Designer

 

 

 

These views are my own.

Spy-Car Demise – Replacement Revenue is in the Occupancy Gap

This article in the Dominion Post, Wellington in New Zealand, is an example of what we are starting to see around the world, city’s parking revenues declining as compliance climbs.  This is a good thing …. Well mostly.  Revenue is still missing in the gap between occupancy rates.

There are some interesting issues here that will allow Wellington to get a system that services the main purpose or parking, to support economic activity and get its occupancy up to the stated aim of 75%.

Council claims its occupancy is at 58%.  The design of its parking operation is clearly imbalanced or not quite right.  If it responded to the occupancy data it is getting, it would have dropped the price by now to encourage a higher occupancy rate.  It may even utilise a multiple price system where the evening rates are set separately to encourage the night time parking.  This is greater utilisation of the parking resource.  Whatever it does, it should be designing a parking operation to aim at occupancy, not revenue.  The revenue is the outcome of better occupancy and a better designed parking operation.

One of the major retailer’s answers was to suggest that Council get control of more off-street parking to encourage more people back into the city.  I suspect that, being a typical retailer, they want a car park full of people, circulating and queuing to get into their shops.  This is a bad sign, not a good sign.  Issues about retail are normally about capacity of the car park.  A well designed parking operation’s goal is full occupancy.  If you have a full car park, then that is the amount of shoppers you are going to get. If the car park is overflowing, you don’t get extra shoppers, you get people sitting in cars and getting upset.  The best car park operators are the private ones as their main goal is occupancy.  I suggest the retailers look elsewhere for answers, i.e. on-street pricing regimes, rather than who is operating the car park.

With the retirement of the spy-car, the Council is having some budget issues.  That is what this article is about.  Extra revenue can be gained in the gap between 58% and 75% occupancy.  This gap can be easily made up by improving the design of the car park operation and introducing variable pricing.  If the Council aims at getting a higher occupancy, such as the international best practice figure of 85%, then the revenue the Council is looking for is the figure between 58% and 85%.  That will make up for the missing revenue from the retirement of the spy-car.  Make occupancy the goal and not revenue.  Everyone will be happier.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/8391778/Spy-car-loss-blamed-for-revenue-fall

This is the personal opinion of the writer.

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.