The On-Street Parking Solution: Which Option is Best for You?
Will your problems be solved with the implementation of new parking meters, central pay stations, pay-by-phone, all of the above, or none of the above?
Another day, another article that touts how a city is unveiling parking stations to replace parking meters. Flip to the next article and you likely will see that there is a campaign in a different city to remove failed parking stations.
Notice in the title, we didn’t say which option is best, we said which option is best for YOU. It’s not surprising that we keep seeing a trend with reversion back to the basics. All too often we are speaking to parking providers and find that they are currently bombarded with a plethora of options that are positioned as being the end all solution. With good intention and promise, the providers quickly provide for the capital outlay and adopt the solution. Life is good now right? Well…maybe not. Before you know it the solution that was going to be the best thing since sliced bread is not getting the reception that you thought it would.
The common theme we find is that decisions are being made without regard to the actual needs of the community and instead are based on the perceived needs of what they think folks need. Providers should thoroughly research their community’s specific parking needs and understand that there will never be ‘one size fits all’ solution appropriate for any and every situation.
The adopted solution should also cover the objectives of all key constituents (residents, businesses, visitors, government). Which leads to the question: what are the key long-term objectives? Herein lays the challenge. Each party has slightly different goals.
- Residents and businesses would prefer parking be free and convenient (wouldn’t we all!)
- Visitors just want to be able to quickly locate parking and get near their destination with ease
- Providers want to maximize revenue and increase efficiency
Regardless of what solution you decide to adopt there will be a set advantages and disadvantages that inevitably will lead to complaints. Knowing what these are and how to navigate against the headwinds will help. Based on our conversations with a broad base of providers (municipalities, universities, and owner/operators) we have compiled a list of things to consider before going down the path of any one option.
Central pay stations / kiosks
Advantages
- Adds electronic payment (if enabled for credit card acceptance)
- Dollar bills and coins are sometimes accepted
- Increases convenience for parkers
- Eliminates meter heads that blanket city streets
- Potentially increases revenue and monitoring efficiency
Disadvantages
- Large capital expenditure ($5K - $20K depending on vendor and type)
- Requires spaces to be numbered unless you do pay and display (see note below)
- No alternatives to park if the machine malfunctions or breaks due to vandalism
- If cash is accepted “No Change Given” is likely
- Cost of running the machine and ongoing maintenance / repair
- Machines quickly get outdated fast
Note that if you do implement a pay station do not make it pay and display i.e. requiring the users to walk to a kiosk, pay for time, walk back to the car and place a receipt on the passenger side dashboard. Simply said, it sucks.
New electronic meter heads
Advantages
- Adds electronic payment
- Increases convenience for parkers
- Potentially increases revenue
Disadvantages
- Large capital expenditure ($400 - $700 per meter head)
- No real efficiency gained – still have to monitor each meter and collect cash
- Cost of ongoing maintenance and repair
Pay-by-Phone
Advantages
- Adds electronic payment
- Low or no capital costs
- Increases convenience for parkers
- Potentially increases revenue and efficiency
- Easily integrates into existing infrastructure
Disadvantages
- Not everyone carries a cell phone (hard to believe)
- Integration required if existing hardware is in place
- Added component to monitoring
With inflation on the continuous rise, the migration to some sort of electronic payment is inevitable…there is only so many quarters and dollars you will stuff into a meter or kiosk!
In the end, it all goes back to doing what is right for meeting long-term goals / objectives of all parties. The right solution could involve any combination of the aforementioned alternatives but will depend on your situation and pressure points. Everyone has good intention but sometimes we fail to do what we should all be doing first: listen
Technology is changing fast. Google who?
As Dennis Burns points out in his recent blog post at Parking Matters, technology is changing fast. Fifteen years ago you probably didn’t have an email account. Ten years ago you probably didn’t have a laptop, and you probably didn’t have a home internet connection. Five years ago you had probably never heard of Facebook. Three years ago you probably didn’t have a smartphone or watch any streaming movies on your computer, and last year you had probably just heard of pay-by-phone parking. The times are changing fast in the world of technology, but it’s quite a bit of fun to watch it happen. As a company in these times we believe it’s very important to stay on the leading edge of where things are headed, because even the most respected and trusted technology brands can tumble with a misstep.
As we follow tech and business in our efforts to stay ahead, we often have lively discussions on what technologies and what businesses will win. A few months ago we had some internal debates regarding who would win the internet war between Google and Facebook (did you even realize there was a war?).
Google is obviously the entrenched giant, but we came to the conclusion that Facebook would win because their tech had given them a strategic advantage. Facebook was riding the strength of their technology and the “Network Effect”, whereas Google has been treating their search business much like a cash cow in the hopes to fund other profitable ventures. Both strategies should be lauded, but in the end, Facebook’s will win.
The reason we believe the tide will shift towards Facebook is because of the inherent network effect. Facebook has high switching costs for the customer (moving pictures, setting up friends again, losing history with friends and wall post history), whereas internet search has low switching costs (switch the URL that you go to). We have actually seen this in the past. Starting in 1996 Altavista was the dominant search engine. They held this post for a year or so - right up until Google launched and took over the search world. Users updated their search bookmarks and the once dominant Altavista disappeared. It was just that quick.
After Google took a swipe at Facebook with Google+ in an attempt to create a social network, the retaliatory motion by Facebook would be obvious, and far more effective. They would create a search engine. The advantage that their search engine would have though, would be that it could search their social network as well as the internet. So when you searched for the “Drake Hotel” you’d see your normal internet search results along with your friends posts on the subject. Facebook could search the social grid, but Google could not. This would be a huge advantage.
This functionality has recently been integrated into Bing’s search engine through a partnership with Microsoft. Google is in trouble, and Microsoft is back on the rise with the help of Facebook.
We think this is a perfect example of the breakneck pace of change in the technology arena and a reminder that you should always ensure that your operations are flexible enough to move with the rapid pace of technology. We must all be cognizant of the tech around us to stay ahead of the game, both strategically and technologically.
