VP New Mobility and Connected Communities WGI West Palm Beach, Florida
Real and perceived parking shortages bedevil communities of all sizes. This presentation examines parking apps and how planners can use performance-based planning, technology, policy, and communications to support driver decisions on whether to drive and where to park.
Parking can make or break a downtown's success. Too much stifles vitality and walkability, but shortages degrade a visitor’s or worker's experience. How can planners strike the balance? Performance-based parking aims to consistently achieve 85–90 percent occupancy. This is great from a parking space's point of view, but the target audience is drivers. What is success for a visitor or worker?
What if we designed a parking program to survey traffic and parking before starting a journey? With congestion or parking-price information in hand, people could decide whether or not to drive. Drivers could safely locate available spaces with navigation apps and real-time signage. Technology that aggregates parking-space information makes this possible.
The presentation peels back the layers of technology needed to monitor spaces, detect congestion, adjust prices, and direct several lines of communication. Since most cities adopt technology in phases, presenters suggest phased investments and links to planning processes.
NPC Peer Reviewers assigned this presentation a learning level of Foundational. For more on learning-level descriptions, visit our General Information Page.
Learning Objectives:
Understand the basics of performance-based parking and how cities can use it to make better use of existing parking assets (as opposed to building more parking).
Define performance for several parking stakeholders: drivers, businesses, and parking managers.
Recognize the layers of technology that feed into parking and navigation apps and how they apply to a planner's role in innovative parking plans.
