Emerging Technologies in Transportation Casebook/Parking Management

Introduction
Searching for parking costs American drivers $73 billion a year, or an average of $345 per person [1]. Parking, an inevitable action taken when owning a vehicle, can cause significant stress for drivers. While demand is an important factor to consider when allotting spaces and their rates, emerging technologies are at the forefront of management applications, both for the supplier and consumer. Technologies support parking management in three main ways: finding parking, enforcing parking, and paying for parking. Consequently, these are the most significant problems in public parking facilities that can easily deter users. This chapter focuses on how existing and emerging technologies are providing parking management solutions for individuals, cities, and private lots.

This chapter was written by Patrick Morrison, Katy Nicholson and Iqbal Safi for Dr. Jonathan Gifford's Emerging Technologies, Transportation and Public Policy class at the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.

Finding Parking
Every large city has a parking issue. For instance, daily, roughly 6 million cars in New York City alone require a parking space. Many more people do not have the luxury of renting an apartment with assigned parking; however, some do. Parking insufficiency causes long meter lines or causes people to drive around in circles until a space opens close to where they're going. It's understandable why so many drivers give up, park illegally, or choose to take public transportation [2].

The problem of struggling to find a parking space has been defined in terms of supply or management; we are narrowing this chapter to parking management, i.e., policies and initiatives that improve the efficiency of using parking spaces. One area in parking management is the provision of information to residents, employees, and or those who visit a commercial, residential, or mixed-use building in urban or suburban areas.[3] There is a wide range of emerging technology solutions that are designed to assist in finding a parking space.

Smart Sensors
Smart sensors are one of the emerging technology solutions that spot open parking spaces and simplify the parking process. Smart sensors use GPS to determine the location of the drivers and guide them toward empty parking spaces near them. With smart sensors, drivers receive real-time notifications and traffic information along with directions to the closest available parking space [2].

Driverless Parking
Driverless parking is another emerging technology solution; with the use of driverless parking technology, vehicles may find and occupy parking places by themselves. This technology saves time as drivers no longer will need to be concerned about finding a parking space or “getting lost” in a big parking lot [2].

Parking Apps
Parking apps are other emerging technology solutions that drivers use to find parking spaces rapidly and in a stress-free manner. The development of numerous automobile parking innovation technologies around the world bodes well for the future of parking. Numerous parking app technologies are already available and in use. Parking apps have helped some well-known urban centers' inefficient parking management.

Case Study: Rosslyn, Arlington, Virginia
The Rosslyn Coordinated Redevelopment District was established in May 1996 by the Arlington County Board. The establishment of Rosslyn district was intended to increase Rosslyn’s potential for a densely populated urban area. The County has planned to achieve this goal through economic and physical expansion of the area; particularly, mixed-use, i.e., commercial, and residential building structures are developed in the area. As the downtown of Arlington, Rosslyn has concentrated housing and jobs within a densely populated urban center. Rosslyn also puts a premium on sustainable development. The vision for Rosslyn district is that the district will have a refined transportation network that connects people and takes them to places that are accessible through multi-modal transportation connections. The district is going to be a walkable neighborhood that has complete streets and off-street parking facilities [4]. Rosslyn, as an urban gateway from Washington, D.C. to Arlington, provides its residents and visitors with tremendous opportunities and provides the best view of the Washington, D.C. area’s monuments and landmarks. The natural beauty of Washington, D.C. can be best viewed from the views that Rosslyn offers. However, the parking options in Rosslyn do not meet the requirements of Rosslyn’s residents and visitors. Rosslyn is one of the cities that uses parking apps in informing and guiding drivers to better fulfill their parking needs. Three parking apps that are used in Rosslyn are:

Parkmobile
With Parkmobile, one can reserve a parking spot before they leave for their destination; the technology solution has a feature that can add time without the need for the driver to run back to the meter. The process is simple and has the following four major steps: Enter the zone number, set the duration, select the vehicle, and pay [5].

SpotHero
With Spothero one can search and reserve parking in thousands of lots and garages across the country. The app allows customers to search for and compare prices at different parking facilities, make a secure payment, and receive an online parking pass [6].

ParkWhiz
ParkWhiz is one consumer app that is powered by “Arrive,” which provides technology solutions for improved mobility. ParkWhiz is famous for its economical parking, allowing users to locate parking and pay to reserve a space [7].

Policy
Despite Rosslyn district’s tremendous efforts to improve parking management, residents, and visitors have expressed that they need more parking options. Rosslyn district maintains that the parking spaces in Rosslyn are abundant; this implies that the problem remains in parking management. Technology solutions can assist in improving the parking process; however, continuous improvement of the transport policy combined with emerging technology solutions could be a more effective and practical solution to the parking problem in Rosslyn. We furthermore recommend enhanced research into and development of Rosslyn’s transportation and land development policies [8].

Paying for Parking
Surface parking spaces cost an estimated $5,000 to $10,000 to construct, including land value. Parking structures cost approximately $25,000 to $50,000 per space. Despite these high costs, users often are not charged to occupy the spaces. Parking is most commonly priced in city centers by private owners and municipalities due to high demand. Because parking systems are locally controlled, there is a dearth of aggregated data on parking prices and policies throughout the United States [9].

Mechanical parking meters were introduced in the 1920s and charged a nickel per hour. In recent years, new technologies have changed the parking payment landscape as the world moves toward cashless payments [10]. A recent survey by the American Parking Association found that more than two thirds of drivers were interested in paying by app for parking at airports and on-street spaces, and an International Parking and Mobility Institute survey showed that 80 percent of drivers in the United States have used their phones to pay for parking [11]. Various technologies have been developed during the 21st century to address parking payment, and ultimately many municipalities end up using combinations of these technologies to support public policy and improve the customer experience.

Single-Space Meters
Unlike the mechanical meters of old, smart meters allow the user to conduct a cashless transaction with credit cards or e-wallets. In some cases, these meters also can collect license plate information and data such as usage patterns to help cities predict occupancy levels and streamline parking enforcement [12]. In early 2022, the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas installed smart meters that offer the option to pay with a credit card or the ParkMobile app, in addition to coins. The new meters also have sensors that record when a car pulls into the space. This allows for parking fee grace periods for short durations and provides parking availability data [13]. Smart meters also allow for dynamic pricing, which can help localities increase revenue and/or optimize parking utilization. Single-space meters have the benefit of being visually present at each parking space as a reminder to customers, but they also contribute to visual clutter on the sidewalk. New York, Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles are some additional examples of cities that use these types of meters [14]. Solar-powered smart meters typically cost around $500.00 each, though the cost varies by brand and features.

Multi-Space Meters
Multi-space meters can handle parking payments for entire blocks of parking spaces. They can be configured as pay-and-display, pay-by-plate, or pay-by-space systems. In the mid 1990s, Aspen, Colorado became the first U.S. city to adopt a pay-and-display system for on-street parking. At the time, local merchants were upset about the city’s transition from free, timed parking to a paid system, but they quickly realized that the increased parking turnover was good for business. Additionally, the paid parking encouraged employees to park in the city garage instead of occupying on-street spaces all day. During the next 10 years, many other cities and towns followed suit. Customers park, pay at the kiosk and go back to their cars to display the ticket on their dashboard [15].

.Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became the first city to adopt pay-by-plate technology in 2012. As with the pay-and-display system, users walk down the block to a kiosk, but they are able to enter their license plate number in the system and pay, negating the need for a ticket (and a walk back to the vehicle to display said ticket). The downside is that the customer needs to remember their license plate number [15].

Pay-by-space systems allow users to enter their parking space number into a payment machine or app, allowing for a contactless, cashless experience [11]. Washington, D.C., implemented this payment system in 2015 in certain areas of the city. Users park in spaces designated by numbered posts. They then enter the space number into a curbside payment kiosk or mobile app to pay for parking [16]. Multi-space meters typically cost more than $5,000.00 each, though this varies by brand and features.

Mobile Payment
When it was introduced in Canada in 2001, PayByPhone became North America’s first mobile payment service for parking. It is now the largest parking payment provider in the world with more than 12.5 million users worldwide. Users can call the phone number on the sign or meter near the parking space and follow the prompts to pay. Parking can be extended with another phone call [17].

Mobile apps also have become a popular method of paying for parking. Companies like ParkMobile have developed apps that allow drivers to locate, reserve and pay for their parking spaces. A website is available for users who do not want to download the app [18]. ParkMobile works with municipalities, airports, college campuses, event venues and other parking providers [19]. In December 2021, ParkMobile reported that it had a total of 30 million customers and had added 200 new locations in the previous year [18].

Pay-by-text allows customers to pay with their mobile phones without downloading an app. The customer sends a text message to the phone number displayed on a sign or decal near the parking space or scans a QR code. They receive a secure link that takes them to a website where they can enter their parking information and payment method. The system can be used in either a pay-by-plate or pay-by-space configuration and can be used on its own or with other types of systems. This technology has been released by Flowbird, which already offers a mobile app [20]. Text2Park is another provider that claims this technology is easier on the customer than downloading an app and creating an account [21].

Pay-in-Car
In-Car meters are small, programmable devices hang from the vehicle’s rearview mirror or grab bar, or are mounted on the dashboard. They are pre-loaded with funds, and deduct the cost after the driver selects the parking zone and activates the timer. Some of these devices contain GPS systems that allow them to automatically deduct the correct amount. In-car meters typically are used as a payment option along with single- or multi-space meters. They allow the customer to pay for parking without visiting the meter, but can be subject to theft [14].

Parkopedia has developed an in-car “infotainment” screen, which can manage payments for parking, tolls, electric vehicle charging, and fueling. The company announced early in 2022 that it has partnered with Passport, a U.S.-based digital transportation payment company, to expand its in-vehicle payment services to 800 towns in the United States. Parkopedia emphasizes the convenience of paying for most vehicle-related expenses through a single platform [22].

AI Parking Recognition
Metropolis Technologies Inc. recently received $167 million in venture capital to continue the development of a system that uses artificial intelligence to charge for parking. Customers sign up for the system through an app or QR code, and computer vision artificial intelligence recognizes the customer’s vehicle when it enters and exits a set parking zone. The customer is then billed through the system [23].

Case Study: San Francisco, California
Prior to the SFpark program, San Francisco’s parking system was not particularly sophisticated and was not designed to meet the city’s evolving needs. Parking meter rates charged the same price all day, every day, and on-street parking was less expensive than garage parking, which incentivized drivers to circle the block looking for an on-street space. The city found that its flat meter rates and short time limits were somewhat effective in achieving parking turnover and budgetary goals, but it wanted to work toward a system that was more convenient for drivers and focused on parking availability [24].

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) launched the SFpark pilot project in 2010-2011. The SFMTA had approved the legislation for the project in 2008, and the Port of San Francisco, which owns more than 1,400 parking spaces along the waterfront, also signed on to the project. The pilot focused on 6,000 parking spaces (approximately 25 percent of the city’s parking inventory) and 12,250 SFMTA-managed garage spaces (approximately 75 percent of city-operated off-street parking) to study the relationship between pricing and parking choices [24]. The project cost $24.75 million, $20 million of which was federally funded [25].

SFMTA used several new technologies, including smart meters, parking sensors, and a data management tool to optimize parking availability[24] with the following objectives in mind:


 * Safety: When drivers circle the block looking for parking, they are distracted while making left- and right-hand turns, creating a hazard for pedestrians and bicyclists. When they double-park due to a lack of available parking, other drivers must go around their vehicles, which also is a safety issue [24].
 * Transit and traffic efficiency: These drivers, whether they are double-parking or circling the block, add to traffic congestion and reduce the reliability of the Muni bus system [24].
 * Economy: A lack of parking, or even a perceived lack of parking, in San Francisco’s commercial districts can discourage residents and visitors from spending time – and money – in those neighborhoods [24].
 * Environment: Vehicles that are idling or circling the block also waste gas and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions [24].

SFMTA used demand-responsive pricing, periodically adjusting rates to ensure that there were always some spaces available on each block and in each garage, while preventing spaces from sitting unused for long. The city’s target occupancy rate for on-street parking was 60-80 percent. When occupancy was 80-100 percent, rates increased by 25 cents per hour. When the occupancy rate was 60-80 percent, rates did not change. When the occupancy rate was 30-60 percent, the rates decreased by 25 cents per hour. And at less than 30 percent occupancy, the rates decreased by 50 cents per hour. Hourly rates were not to go above $6.00 per hour or below 25 cents per hour. During the two-year pilot program, rates were adjusted every eight weeks – 10 times in total [24]

For garage parking, the city decreased its commuter discounts and changed its payment system to match that of the on-street system, with different occupancy thresholds. In addition to demand, the garage rates also were adjusted to reduce entries and exits during the heaviest traffic times by providing off-peak discounts. Previous early-bird discounts had incentivized drivers to enter and exit the garages during rush hour [24].

At the end of the program in 2013, on-street parking rates increased on half of the blocks included in the program, and decreased on the other half. Overall, on-street and garage rates decreased during the course of the program. Availability increased by 16 percent in the areas included in the program, while decreasing by 50 percent in excluded areas. In the program area, the target occupancy rate was met by an additional 31 percent, compared to 6 percent in excluded areas. SFpark also helped to increase the utilization of city parking garages (11 percent increase), particularly during off-peak times (14 percent increase). Finally, the program reduced the number of commuters parking in SFMTA-operated garages, providing increased parking availability for visitors (an economic win) and a reduction in commuters driving into the commercial district (an environmental win). During the pilot period of 2011-2013, the city’s population, employment, travel and economic activity increased [24].

SFMTA conducted the pilot program not only for its own benefit, but to provide valuable data to the U.S. Department of Transportation, other jurisdictions for consideration in developing their own parking programs, and the transportation research community.[25]

The SFpark pilot program demonstrated that new technologies can allow communities to meet their changing parking needs, and that parking pricing can help to control demand. There are many new parking payment technologies available. They add convenience and increase compliance, but perhaps their most compelling advantage is the ability to support public policy. While paid parking has been used in the past to generally help limit the duration of occupancy and to fill budget gaps, today’s technologies – smart meters and occupancy sensors – allow cities to more precisely control occupancy rates by adjusting prices based on demand.

License Plate Recognition
License Plate Recognition, or LPR, is at the forefront of recent technology applications for parking management and enforcement. LPR was first implemented in a bulky and costly attempt in the United Kingdom to combat terrorism in 1981, but advancements in camera quality and software design have made the technology a more efficient and cost-friendly enforcement mechanism for private and public parking management [26]. LPR uses fixed, mounted, or handheld cameras to take images of license plates, which are then fed through a software program, characterizing, and identifying the read licenses in an electronic format, feeding into the selected local database to determine the legality of the vehicle in real-time [27].

LPR itself is not a new technology, but many stakeholders are finding innovative solutions to parking problems with the technology. LPR is an attractive solution as higher quality cameras are available for relatively cheap costs and can reliably identify infractions. LPR allows public and private entities to monitor and penalize infractions in real-time. However, like all technologies, LPR has its limitations. It does not work well in inclement weather such as sleet, fog, or rain, and raises some privacy concerns. Improvements have certainly been made to address these disadvantages, but LPR remains an imperfect enforcement tool.

Autonomy and Automation
As vehicles become more connected with their surroundings on the road, the capabilities of autonomous technologies can also remedy parking management problems. Modern cars also come with park-assist and other sensor technologies that can maneuver vehicles autonomously into tight spaces. While these features are tailored to assist individual vehicle operators in proximity, garages in urban centers are investing in automated technology more like that found in manufacturing or warehouse facilities to save space in land-spent cities [28]. Vehicles simply drive onto a platform upon checking in, and the vehicle is stored automatically, often on racks or some other vertical storage space, and retrieved automatically when the owner returns.

While automation offers a unique solution to crowded urban areas, there are other benefits as well. More efficient car storage means less land area and building volume, as well as fewer emissions from drivers searching for a spot [29]. Vendors often promise scratch-free parking and timely delivery of one’s vehicle, but a quick google search of automated lots in the United States will reveal online ratings that system failures are critical, leaving customers without their cars for over 12 hours in some cases.

Automated parking provides a promising solution to crammed cities searching for space for residents, commuters, and other visitors to park their cars. While expensive, at up to $50,000 per space, there are land-use, economic, and environmental incentives to continue investment into bettering the technology implementation [30].

Parkmatic
Parkmatic provides automated and attended mechanical parking solutions for private buildings and lots. While their attended solutions do make more efficient use of space, their automated solutions can double the number of spaces as a ground lot or typical garage. Four different automated designs (carousel, puzzle, rack & rail, and tower) each best suited for a specific environment, move cars into the garage after owners drive onto the platform, and vehicles are then automatically stored and retrieved [28].

Parkmatic offers the most promise for parking garages and lots that have little space, but plenty demand for car storage. Car dealerships, universities, and other larger operations with little space, both horizontally and vertically, are best suited to seek Parkmatic parking management solutions. Parkmatic, like other automated parking companies, also boasts increased security and minimal theft.

Genetec
Genetec leverages license plate recognition software to offer better management for private garages and lots. Integrating existing cameras and data from their customers, Genetec provides a breadth of services, including mobile parking enforcement, security solutions, infrastructure analysis and more. The AutoVu system manages the enforcement and data privacy of Genetec projects. Genetec claims to have the most sophisticated cameras and integration software in the industry, allowing for their wide range of quality services.

Genetec’s primary market is large, publicly used lots, meant to serve lots of people. Richmond, VA, the Montreal-Trudeau airport, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, the Danish police force, and many others use Genetec for parking management and security solutions [31].

Klaus Multiparking
Klaus Multiparking is a German parking assist product and service provider, with an international reach in over 80 countries. Klaus believes movement is the essential design element in intelligent parking systems, so many of their goods provide flexible options, such as parking pallets, fully automated parking systems, semi-automated parking systems, and other space-maximizing alternatives to manual parking.

Klaus is more active in private parking management, as their international projects focus on multi-family residential and single-family homes or commercial offices. Their smaller-scale designs can increase storage space in urban neighborhoods with limited space for car storage [32].

City Scanner
City Scanner offers automated tools best suited for on-street parking enforcement for municipalities. A vehicle with a mounted camera simply patrols the area, and while driving around, multiple images are taken to detect parking infractions and unpaid parking fees. City Scanner runs a flexible operation, with the capacity to add additional sensors tailored to shifting demands. The German start-up also offers parking and infrastructure analysis leveraging their high-quality cameras. The technology can be suited to any vehicle, offering a low-cost asset-lite solution to parking enforcement. Most of their clients are city municipalities patrolling on-street parking [33].

PayBySky
PayBySky is a Canadian cloud-based parking and connected vehicle service provider. Their smartphone application, Kerbeze, leverages connected vehicle information to inform restaurants and other merchants of pick-up and drop off arrival times with pinpoint accuracy to streamline delivery, pick-up and other services for consumers and merchants.

Continuing leveraging of car-based data, Skymeter is the firm’s autonomous payment system that identifies unique vehicles entering lots with PayBySky spaces, and the system automatically bills the selected credit card, completely removing the need to think about paying for parking.

While many newer car models with inherent technology only need to pay the subscription ($15/month), most vehicles produced after 1996 can purchase an adapter for $250. However, as an exclusive network, PayBySky is limited in its potential to have far reaching effects, until competitors disrupt the market to leave room for interoperability or purge the firm from the market if it fails to evolve [34].

Greeley, CO
A small suburban city, Greeley, Colorado issues automated traffic citations to illegally parked cars from vehicle-mounted cameras and integrated LPR to detect infractions and scofflaws. The technology allows public officials to quickly identify abandoned or inoperable vehicles. Passport Inc. was contracted as the service provider to solve the parking crisis in the city’s internal operations and physical environment. Their services also include curb management geared towards micromobility, and parking management software to expedite locating available spots via smart phone app [35].

Washington, D.C.
As one of the most congested American cities with an under-performing and slow public transportation service, Washington, D.C. launched a pilot in the winter of 21-22 to determine the feasibility of automated bus lane enforcement. The District Department of Transportation and stakeholders equipped buses traveling through transit priority lanes and corridors with mounted cameras to detect infractions with LPR and enforce tickets, including illegal parking, picking up and dropping off, travelling through the lane, and other infractions.

Results from the short pilot may have been unconvincing as the pilot duration coincided with sever snowstorms and low visibility. Mounted cameras on moving vehicles are less reliable than fixed cameras, like those at intersections. The final report included recommendations to install more reliable, but less flexible, more common cameras mounted to intersection poles [36].

Stuttgart, Germany Airport
In late 2020 at the Stuttgart Airport, Mercedes with their new S-class of vehicles combined with German group Bosch to pilot new applications of autonomous parking and management. Regular and thorough mapping of the garage and leveraging cameras and connected vehicles enables the German duo to map pre-determined routes for cars in the garage to their spot, maximizing space and limiting customer idling. Unlike most autonomous technology, Bosch is not relying on more-expensive LiDAR.

The project does not rely on any automated storage mechanics to further maximize space, as this is achieved fractionally through parking the cars closer to each other without space required for drivers and passengers to open doors and remove their luggage (37).

Role of Policy
Local private parking management does not interact too much with public policy on a micro level, as automated garages can easily comply with local noise ordinances and land-use contracts. However, land acquisition in a market meant to capture externalities in crammed urban areas is certainly an obstacle to implementing new construction projects.

Municipal parking enforcement leveraging innovative technologies must prepare at the front end to create policy frameworks and legislative and regulatory authority. License plate recognition software ticketing automatically can only issue tickets to the owner of the vehicle according to the registration information. With stolen vehicles and other reasons for petitions, additional support and appeal processes must be established to account for the limitations of automated enforcement. Municipalities must also consider how they will signify to the public that they are in an automated enforcement zone

Some cities have disincentivized driving or parking in congested downtown areas through a variety of different methods. Washington D.C. implemented a demand-based pricing model in a pilot in 2019, cities in India have odd-even policies in which only vehicle plates ending in an odd or even number are allowed entry on alternating days [38,39].

Other policy efforts from cities battling congestion, pollution, and safety problems have removed parking minimums from high-density areas, increased tolls and parking rates to disincentivize driving in those areas. This is a future of urban policy decision-making that must be considered in a discussion of the future of parking management. Will solutions tailored to smaller, local challenges, like those offered by Klaus prevail as the least obtrusive and smallest scale solutions outlast the rest of the market? Or will cities continue to discourage cars, making it difficult for large vertical storage solution providers, like Parkmatic, to find new projects to sustain innovation and growth?

Conclusion
Parking is a public policy issue that has safety, economic, environmental and quality-of-life implications. Existing and emerging technologies can help to improve the customer experience and manage behavior to support public and private sector parking objectives. In particular, mobile apps help drivers locate and pay for parking, vehicle recognition technology has been revolutionary for parking enforcement, and data collection provides insight into demand. Not all of these technologies are brand new, but parking management leaders continue to identify innovative ways to use them. As artificial intelligence continues to develop, it is likely to play a growing role in parking management, which could lead to privacy issues. Cities and towns, as well as private businesses, have numerous options for parking management technologies, and they can choose the combination of these tools that best fits their budget, customer base, and goals. The technology must be paired with smart, data-driven policies to achieve these objectives and truly optimize parking management.