Tag Archives: mobility

IPMI Blog, Resources

Emerging Parking and Mobility Partners

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By L. Dennis Burns, CAPP

In the past year or two, I have noticed what seems to be an encouraging trend related to an increased interest and focus on parking and mobility issues by inter-governmental and planning organizations. Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in particular have become much more active in funding and leading parking and mobility projects in their jurisdictions.

In the past few years, we have worked on several parking and mobility studies for urban areas funded by MPOs. These projects are often managed in collaboration with local municipalities. It is exciting to see the universe of planning professionals recognizing the importance of parking and mobility as key levers to affect the larger issues of congestion management, economic development, environmental sustainability, and even community resiliency.

One example of this is an RFP put out by the Wasatch Front Regional Council (WFRC), Utah, in conjunction with several other agencies to complete a “parking modernization initiative.” Using a case-study approach with two specific communities, the project will ultimately generate a roadmap for updating parking and mobility strategies that can be used by any Utah municipality or agency dealing with parking and mobility issues.

Local or regional councils of governments (COGs) are also sponsoring important research in parking and mobility. A few years ago, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) put out an RFP for the creation of its Regional Parking Management Toolbox “as a means of providing the communities, jurisdictions, and destinations within the San Diego region a framework for evaluating, implementing, managing, and maintaining parking management strategies to support community growth and stakeholder desires.” Kimley-Horn was fortunate to win this project and the resulting toolbox won an IPMI Award of Excellence.

Recently, my colleague, William Reynolds (RBT Consultants), and I spoke at a parking symposium sponsored by the North Texas Council of Governments in Dallas. This was an excellent regional conference and it was great to reconnect with many Texas parking professionals. One of the focus areas for this symposium was how we can better leverage data to inform parking management decisions. We presented on a project we had completed for the City of Portland, Ore., a “Performance-Based Parking Management Manual.” I  am happy to share this presentation on request.

It is great to see parking and mobility issues being addressed by a larger and more diverse group of planning and government agencies. This trend is good for everyone!

L. Dennis Burns, CAPP, is regional vice president and senior practice builder with Kimley-Horn.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Curb Management and the Smart Cities Road Map

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Our world is becoming more urbanized than ever before. By 2050, more than 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, and public and private companies, as well as federal, state, and city governments, are getting involved to make the connection between people and the city itself. This includes rethinking the downtown model–including parking.

Key to making it all work as cities get smarter? Curb management. It’s something of a buzz phrase, but figuring out who can use curb space for what, when, and how, is key to making cities work smarter and better as mobility expands. In this month’s Parking & Mobility magazine, Teresa Trussell, CAPP, breaks down how curb management will play a key role in the smart cities road map and why that map will be critical to the way parking professionals work–not to mention the way people live. Read it here.

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

Mobility & Tech: Peak Car?

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By Brett Wood, CAPP, PE

I WAS IN GRAD SCHOOL AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, learning my trade in transporta­tion planning, which would eventually fall headlong into parking planning. I remember one class in which my graduate research professor spoke about transportation trends. The discussion specifically focused on how for the entirety of the modern life of the au­tomobile the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) grew steadily.

Yes, there were small declines during the gas short­ages in the 1970s and recessions in the 1980s, but the auto industry always recovered and the average user continued to drive more and more. My professor said that while this trend was interesting, we almost cer­tainly would see some disruption in our lifetime that ended or reversed this steady climb in driving.

For many of the thought leaders in the transporta­tion industry, that disruption was the Great Recession. Gas price increases, pay stagnation, and massive disruption to our financial well-being seemed to be the catalyst that would reverse the driving trend. This theory was called Peak Car—the plateauing and even­tual reduction in miles traveled, auto reliance, land disruption, and pollution the automobile has borne for the last 100 years. And for some time, they were right. From 2007 to 2012, the annual VMT in the U.S. slowly decreased. The average annual miles driven per capita dropped below 10,000 miles per person for the first time since the turn of the century. It seemed that Peak Car had occurred, and people were chang­ing course.

Changing Our Ways?

Then, in 2012 something shifted. VMT started to escalate, while auto sales returned to pre-recession levels and are steadily climbing. All of this came at a time when teenagers and young profession­als began to delay or decline the decision to get a driver’s license (since the mid 1980s, the rate of 16-year-olds getting driver’s licenses has dropped almost 50 percent), and a greater number of profes­sionals started to live in urban areas that support a less car-dependent lifestyle. The diverging courses were perplexing.
This begs a not-so-simple question—are we chang­ing our ways or are we reverting to our historical patterns? A few thoughts might provide context to the actual answer:

  • Coming out of the Great Recession, the rate of millennials owning an automobile was relatively low. This makes sense given the financial situation for college graduates entering the workforce. But as their financial situation improves and they start families, it becomes more reasonable to accept that they might own an automobile, even if it is not their only form of transportation.
  • The U.S. population continues to increase. Even though the pace of our growth is at an all-time low, we are still growing. And while most of our popula­tion is moving toward urban centers, the net effects of growth with migration continue to push increases in rural areas that may not have the infrastructure to support a non-automotive lifestyle.
  • The popularity of transportation network companies (TNCs) and the ride-share model has created a new wave of ­single-occupant vehicles that are moving between paying trips, creating more and more miles traveled.

The combination of these three elements paints a clearer picture of the change we are seeing. While annual VMT has seen a sharp increase in recent years, that per capita VMT value is increasing at a much slower rate. More people are on the road for professional-driving related trips, but fewer miles are traveled per person because we have more options to rely on.

Getting to Peak Car
Therein lies the opportunity to truly reach a level of Peak Car defined by those thought leaders (and my professor). Given the proliferation of mobility options in the industry today, we have a distinct opportunity to shape a future that experiences Peak Car. A few examples:

  • Better driving and parking policies to motivate behavioral change such as congestion pricing, demand-based parking pricing, fringe park-and-ride to reduce vehicular access into urban centers, and better information to find parking to reduce miles related to cruising.
  • Providing better options for daily decision-making can help people in urban and urban fringe areas to intelligently choose the cheapest, fastest, and most sustainable option for commuting every day. Data sharing, navigation engines, and user-choice applications can stimulate a much smarter transportation system.
  • Better integration of connected vehicles and transportation systems and the upcoming proliferation of autonomous vehicles can help reduce redundant trips and support more efficient use of TNCs.
  • Implementing micro-mobility options that help connect first- and last-mile options and make transit trips a more reasonable and feasible solution for travelers.

As professionals in this industry, we have the ability to manage and shape these practices to support a more efficient and multifaceted future. The time is now for the parking and mobility industry to take the reins and begin to shape the fu­ture of our industry and the world around it.

Read the article here.

BRETT WOOD, CAPP, PE, is a parking planner with Kimley-Horn and co-chair of IPMI’s Research Committee. He can be reached at brett.wood@kimley-horn.com.

 

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

Stop Treating the Symptoms: Curing Traffic Congestion at the Source

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By Juan Rodriguez

CONGESTION IS A PROBLEM that routinely plagues cities worldwide. The threats it poses Symptoms Cure Traffic Congestionto society are immense: chronic pollution, crumbling infrastructures, and low quality of life. As major cities search for solutions, they often turn to tactics such as congestion pricing and curbside management—programs that can produce positive results but only treat symptoms of the problem. To cure congestion at the source, cities need to turn to dynamic mobility ecosystem hubs that manage their sources by connecting people with alternate solutions.

Congestion Control through Pricing

London, England, is one of the world’s pioneers in using congestion pricing, which requires motorists to pay fees to drive into the center of the city during busy periods. London implemented congestion pricing in 2002 with the goals of reducing traffic volumes, improving bus ser­vices, and making the delivery of goods and services more efficient. And it has worked.

In 2006, Transport for London (TfL), the government agency respon­sible for the city’s transportation system, found that the surcharge re­duced traffic by 15 percent and congestion—which it defines as the extra time a trip would take because of traffic—by 30 percent. The TfL reports these trends continue today, with traffic volumes down nearly 25 percent compared to a decade ago. That has enabled it to open more dedicated road space for bicyclists and pedestrians.

However, congestion remains a problem due to a number of factors, including one city officials could not have anticipated back in 2002: the influx of transportation network company (TNC) drivers using their cars to work for companies such as Uber and Lyft.
The Conversation news site reports that while the number of cars driven by their owners has fallen, the number of private for-hire vehicles such as TNCs and minicabs is up. Trips by taxis and private for-hire vehicles as the main mode of transportation have increased by nearly 30 percent since the surcharge was implemented. Today, more than 18,000 different private for-hire vehicles enter the congestion charging zone each day, reducing the speed of traffic through the city.

The ripple effects include traffic jams, slower bus service, and falling revenue. Taxis and minicabs (but not TNC vehicles) are exempt from paying the congestion charge, so, not surprisingly, the number of minicab registrations rose quickly—from 49,854 in 2013 to 87,409 in 2017. Last year, TfL experienced its first drop in congestion charge in­come since 2010.

New York lawmakers are evaluating the pros and cons of the London case study as they prepare to make New York City the first U.S. city to implement congestion pricing. Assuming its scheduled December 2020 rollout is not delayed, motorists will pay a toll of around $12 to drive between midtown and lower Manhattan.
The plan passed as part of the state budget earlier this year, but some lawmakers, business owners, community activists, and residents are pushing for a number of exemptions. They see the mandatory surcharge as being akin to a regressive tax that imposes an unfair financial burden on the lower and middle classes, who typically don’t live in the city and have no choice but to make the daily commute.

The plan currently exempts “conges­tion zone” residents who earn less than $60,000 a year, as well as emergency vehicles and vehicles carrying people with disabilities. Other proposals want to extend exemptions to all New York resi­dents, any police officers who drive their personal vehicles into the city, and all electric vehicles.

Whatever the final version of the plan looks like when (or if) it is implemented, the fight for exemptions will continue, the reduction of traffic congestion will be minimal, and the city will face the same issues of lost government revenue London is deal­ing with now.
A recent Quinnipiac University poll found New Yorkers op­pose the congestion pricing plan by a 54 to 41 percent margin. If a majority of New Yorkers are unhappy with the prospect of having to pay extra money to drive their cars, just imagine how they might react to a policy that prohibits them from driving their cars at all.

No-drive Days
That’s the model Mexico City officials created when they imple­mented a “No Drive Day” program. Each weekday is reserved only for cars with specific license plate numbers and letters. The written policy states:

  • Monday: no driving if license plate ends with 5 or 6.
  • Tuesday: no driving if license plate ends with 7 or 8.
  • Wednesday: no driving if license plate ends with 3 or 4.
  • Thursday: no driving if license plate ends with 1 or 2.
  • Friday: no driving if license plate ends with 9, 0, or a letter.

Of course, there are exemptions and exceptions to these rules, particularly for foreigners and Mexican residents who live outside Mexico City. Take this example of a vehicle with Texas license plates that end with the digit 3:

“Thus under the rules above from Monday to Friday, they can­not drive between 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. However, on Wednesday, they have the additional restriction that they cannot drive between 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. The only way they can get around this is to obtain a 0 or 00 sticker should their vehicle be eight years old or newer.”

Americans generally hate having to keep track of what side of the street they must park their cars on depending on what day it is. It’s safe to assume that a proposal for a No-drive Day policy will be met with vehement opposition. However, many are experimenting with restricting parking curbside.

Take It to Curb
Take a moment to think about all the uses for those lips of concrete that separate streets and sidewalks. Drivers looking for parking spots (and struggling to parallel park) fight for limited space with taxis, TNCs, and buses dropping off and picking up passengers, as well as delivery vehicles. The results are frustrating traffic jams and an increased risk of accidents involving vehicles and pedestrians.

Autonomous vehicle manufacturers and tech companies such as Google and Uber are developing solutions to ease that con­gestion and reduce the risk of accidents. Their intelligent route navigation and collision avoidance capabilities will enable much more efficient interactions with other vehicles to reduce the instances of unnecessary starting and stopping and prevent ac­cidents. Still, they won’t solve the congestion caused by stopping curbside to collect or drop off passengers.

Implementing a policy that prohibits vehicles from stopping or parking curbside would be counterproductive and costly. Curbs are one of the most valuable assets a city owns (see the May issue of The Parking Professional for more). Governing mag­azine reports America’s 25 biggest cities collect about $5 billion in car-related revenue. The trouble is even if you widen streets; add new lanes for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians; or create dedicated parking zones for passenger or delivery vehicles, curbs remain a fixed asset.

If people stop parking their cars and feeding parking me­ters, what happens to the city services that that money funds? What about the businesses that depend on that traffic to bring customers to their doors? This space needs to be managed more intelligently.
Some cities such as Washington, D.C.; San Francisco, Ca­lif; and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., have tried to strike a balance between keeping curbsides open for vehicles of all kinds and reducing congestion with curb­side management programs built around the concept of shared mobility zones. Curb­side areas are reserved for specific functions, such as only being available to taxis and TNCs during rush hour and only to delivery trucks in the afternoons or overnight.

While cities experiment with ways to ease traffic congestion on the streets, their sidewalks are becoming just as crowded (and dangerous). Pedestrians, joggers, and bike or scooter riders have to avoid one another. The rise of micro-mobility technology com­panies that enable customers to rent a scooter or bike right from their smartphones can reduce the number of cars traveling short distances and provide new first- and last-mile transportation options that encourage more people to use mass transit. Howev­er, they also create safety issues, and the gig charging economy’s general lack of organization encourages riders to park wherever they want, blocking sidewalks.

Even if a city implements congestion pricing, prevents peo­ple from driving their cars on certain days, sets aside portions of curbside areas for different uses, and rolls out fleets of self-­driving vehicles, the effects on traffic congestion will be minimal. There are simply too many cars and trucks on the streets, and increasingly, bikes and scooters cluttering the sidewalks.

A Congestion Cure: The Mobility Hub

These challenges present an enormous business opportunity for innovative owners and operators of parking garages, lots, and other assets. Using technology available today, they can work with their B2B partners to create full-service mobility hubs that enable TNC drivers to get off the streets between fares.

Drivers can pre-reserve parking spaces, navigate to those spaces via their Uber or Lyft driver apps, use their smart­phones’ Bluetooth connections to pay to enter the facility (perhaps at a discount), and quickly leave when summoned by a customer. The entire process would be automated and immediate so drivers won’t need to worry about using a deb­it/credit card, having cash at the ready, or interacting with a parking attendant.
All parties involved benefit when ride-hailing vehicles are not roaming the streets waiting for passengers. Along with relieving traffic congestion, drivers reduce the wear and tear on their cars and save money on gas, riders won’t experience delays, and parking operators grow their businesses by filling otherwise unused spaces.

Parking asset owners can also partner with micro-mobility technology companies to create docking areas for bikes and scoot­ers and even build charging and servicing hubs. The model could resemble what has worked for so long with luggage carts at airports: You pay to unlock the cart, use it to transport your bags to your car or the curb, then get some money back when you return the cart to a designated area.
Parking garages can be the center of the mobility crossroads for all transportation options, making it easy for people to connect with all options that mass transit agen­cies and private sector companies offer. Parking garages can also serve as hubs for charging electric vehicles and even landing areas for delivery drones. Whatever the vehicle and its purpose, users and drivers (and robot pilots) would be able to find and pay for parking quickly and easily.

These benefits should also extend to drivers of commercial delivery trucks. They work on tight deadlines and don’t have time to circle city blocks looking for streetside parking spots, forcing them to double-park and exacerbate traffic congestion. A curbside management program that designates specific areas for delivery trucks may seem like a good idea, but not when you con­sider how many delivery trucks move through a city every day. There simply isn’t enough available curbside real estate.

All of these scenarios are possible thanks to the maturation of cloud computing platforms and internet of things devices that are always connected to the internet. They present the parking industry with a unique opportunity to turn its assets into con­nected mobility hubs and partner with city officials to cure the problems urban traffic and congestion create, not just put a ban­dage on them.

Read the article here.

JUAN RODRIGUEZ is CEO and co-founder of FlashParking. He can be reached at juan.rodriguez@flashparking.com.

 

 

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

Taking Control of the Curb

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By David Singletary

TRANSPORTATION AND MOBILITY LOOK VERY DIFFERENT than they did a decade ago. 19-09 Curb ArticleThere used to be a handful of ways to travel throughout a city: single-occupancy vehicles, public transit buses, trains, taxi cabs, and the occasional bicycle. Today, the number of options has increased with the introduction of shared ride-hailing vehicles such as Uber and Lyft, subscrip­tion-based car-share services, and docked and dockless bikes and electric scooters.

Each of these new modes, along with growing fleets of parcel and on-demand delivery services and other vehicles, requires access to the curb, which is allocat­ed primarily to car parking. This mismatch between the needs of a modern mobility ecosystem and the traditional curb governance rules has created chaotic curbs that reduce the efficiency of urban mobility by encouraging double-parking, obstructions in the right-of-way, and cruising for parking.

At any given time, a city block could have dozens of vehicles competing for a spot: a truck temporar­ily parked to make deliveries, ride-hailing vehicles pulled over to pick up or drop off passengers, cars ­parallel-parked on the street, a city bus at a bus stop, or electric scooters stored on the street or sidewalk. With all of these vehicles requiring access to the curb, cities need better and more flexible tools to coordinate, manage, and optimize curbside use.

The first step in successfully managing access to the curb is with a parking enforcement system that can measure, incentivize, and enforce which vehicles are allowed to take up space on the curbside and under what conditions. A real-time enforcement system can be part of the backbone of a city’s mobility operation because that single piece of technology can be used to monitor and incentivize compliant curb use across all vehicle types.

Curb Management
Currently, most cities, universities, private operators, and agencies have a parking enforcement system to manage on- and off-street parking for cars. There are plenty of capable systems and companies that can help you write parking tickets, accept payments, manage appeals, integrate license plate recognition (LPR), and manage citations in a traditional parking world view. The important question is “how will your current or future technology partners help you ensure compli­ance across your evolving ecosystem—which now includes transportation network companies, scooters, commercial vehicles, and whatever comes next?”

Curbside management is best thought of as an ex­tension of parking: The curb is a scarce resource, there should be costs and other rules (such as time limits) regulating its use, and non-optimal behavior should incur a penalty (currently, a parking ticket, boot, or similar). With this in mind, the future of curbside management will necessi­tate an evolved version of parking enforcement that combines a mix of tradi­tional boots-on-the-ground enforcement, automated enforcement techniques such as LPR, and program­matic enforcement for the growing number and types of connected vehicles. At present, single-occupancy, privately owned vehicles require traditional parking enforcement techniques, which are resource-intensive and challenging to scale. However, the advent of the internet of things and pro­liferation of connected vehicles mean that the rates to access the curb and the rules that apply can be deliv­ered and enforced in real time to an unlimited number of vehicles citywide.

In the short term, one opportunity for better en­forcement is with delivery vehicles, which are increas­ingly contributing to congestion as online shopping and food delivery grow in popularity. According to UPS, the company pays a significant amount in fines every year for vehicles that receive citations for parking illegally—and these are just for observed events. Delivery drivers don’t have the directive to take the time to pay the me­ter or use their smartphones to start a parking session for a delivery that may only take a few minutes.
Limited coverage of enforcement throughout the day means that temporary parking, such as that from delivery companies, happens without effective enforcement. As a result, the companies know driv­ers will receive tickets on only a small percentage of non-compliant parking sessions, which reduces their incentive to pay for parking. Said another way, their access to the curb is underpriced because enforcement of the rules is inefficient and hard to scale. That drives low compliance, which compounds negative effects on traffic and congestion.

To solve this complex problem, cities must consider the way they want delivery vehicles to fit into their curbside ecosystem and deploy systems that align their interests with the owners of these fleets. To align incentives among these groups in the near-term, cities must increase the aggregate cost of non-compliance by issuing citations on a higher percentage of non-com­pliant delivery sessions and/or increasing the fee per citation. This holds true for virtually every type of ve­hicle that requires access to the curb.
Because the ability to detect non-compliance and issue fines is a function of a city’s parking enforcement system, the flexibility and responsiveness of its cho­sen technology will have a disproportionate impact on the city’s ability to control access to the curb and, consequently, build a mobility system that meets the needs of its citizens and visitors. The job of parking en­forcement software has evolved, and delivery vehicles illustrate that the techniques and technology that were necessary to perform the old job won’t be sufficient as the industry transitions from parking management to curbside management.

Implementation
With the myriad changes in the past decade, we can hardly imagine what the next 10 years will have in store for the parking and mobility space. But leaders need to start thinking today about the future state of their op­erations and how to apply existing and effective meth­odologies, such as paid parking for single-occupancy vehicles, to emerging modes.
To effectively manage the curb, it is important to find the right solutions that can provide the right com­bination of expertise and technology to futureproof your operation. In a world where everything happens at lightning speed and is highly dynamic, an enforce­ment system and strategy that allow you to standardize integrations and centralize data governance will be the lynchpin in enabling you to manage your operation in real time.

Read the article here.

DAVID SINGLETARY is vice president of Passport. He can be reached at david.singletary@passportinc.com.

 

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

Mobility Services and Technology

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How curb management is part of the smart city and mobility road map.

By Teresa Trussell, CAPP

AS A PARKING INDUSTRY VETERAN, I have been reading this magazine for approximately 1719-09 Mobility services years, and I must say I have never seen more excitement than at this moment over a single topic: curb management. As I read each article, I find myself thinking about the concept of the smart city and smart mobility and how these services relate to technology.

I cannot help but picture curb management as a waypoint on the road map, rather than the destination itself. Curbs did not suddenly just appear—we’ve all been backing into them for years while trying to par­allel park and hoping no one noticed—so why is it just now an issue? The answer is quite simple and takes us all back to our economics 101 class: supply and de­mand. A recent shift to urban and alternative transpor­tation methods as well as the proliferation of smart­phones as a connected resource have resulted in com­peting needs for the curb areas, which can no longer be considered as only parking (or no parking) zones, loading and unloading areas, and utility ­agency-use regions. This shift has pushed cities and parking oper­ations into rethinking their transportation and parking models with a desire to create a dynamic downtown region that’s built around the smart city and smart mo­bility road map.

Defining the Terms

Before we dive into the smart city and mobility road map, it is important to define what smart city and smart mobility means. The first time I read this phrase I thought to myself, “What, were we a dumb city be­fore?” My answer was yes—in a sense!
Smart City

Data has provided cities and operators with the neces­sary information to make informed decisions that would have previously been made on assumptions or manual counts. Having access to this data in real time provides identifiable patterns that allow decision-makers to con­tinually adjust their transportation and parking process­es. This data is a result of technology implementations on both the transportation and parking home fronts.
The International Data Corporation defines a smart city as development based on smart initiatives combined to leverage technology investments across an entire city with common platforms increasing efficiency, data being shared across systems, and IT investments tied to smart missions. A common goal shared from city to city is to improve the lives of its cit­izens and visitors. By combining this common goal and the concept of data, the smart city uses technology to connect various components across the city to derive data and improve the lives of its citizens and visitors.

Smart Mobility

This concept is a new way (or perhaps a return to a former way) of thinking about how we get from point A to point B with an emphasis on moving people rath­er than cars, zero emissions, and a cleaner, safer, and more efficient urban district. These modes of trans­portation include scooters, bicycles, buses, light rail trains, subways, streetcars, taxis, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, walking, pedicabs, and ride-share vehicles. Smart mobility is often designed around five key principles:

  • Safety: Reduction of injuries and fatalities and an urban environment that is safely walkable.
  • Clean Technology: Transportation modes focused on zero-emissions.
  • Integration: Connecting the dots of transportation modes from door-to-door with route planning using technology as well as connections with city resources outside of parking and transportation needs.
  • Efficiency: Moving people to their destinations with minimal disruption.
  • Flexibility: Consumers have options regarding modes of transportation that suit their individual needs and preferences.

The link between smart cities and smart mobility is the direct connection between data gleaned from technology in support of the smart mobility concept and ultimately increasing usage of alternative trans­portation options and connect the dots for consumers. Through data usage, apps can allow consumers to plan routes that avoid traffic congestion, locate parking while avoiding congested parking areas, and use various modes of alternative transportation for the first and last miles. Likewise, operators can use this same data to improve safety within the city by identifying an issue be­fore it is problematic—such as changing traffic patterns.

Combined, we have a definition of a smart city using the smart mobility concept as a city that uses technology to connect various components across the city to derive data and improve the lives of its citizens and visitors by offering various forms of transpor­tation options focused on a cleaner, safer, and more efficient environment.

Creating the Smart City and Mobility Road Map
Our world is becoming more urbanized than ever before. By 2050, more than 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in cities, and public and private companies, as well as federal, state, and city governments, are getting involved to make the connec­tion between people and the city itself. This includes rethinking the former downtown model. Studies say parkers account for 30 percent of circling traffic. Park­ing apps are addressing this by directing people to avail­able areas. As the focus on smart mobility increases, a shift in the parking model must also occur. Limited land access requires parking outside city regions with a dependency on the first and last mile revolving around smart mobility—or mobility-as-a-service (MaaS).

The objective of MaaS is to provide an alternative to private vehicle use while reducing traffic congestion in a way that is convenient, sustainable, and a cheaper option to traditional transport. When considering the way in which this transforms the downtown districts, a direct competition is created between the increasing city population and the alternative transportation modes, which creates a safety concern in which pedes­trians, bicyclists, autonomous vehicles, and ride-share vehicles compete with the single-occupancy vehicle. The resulting model is to focus the urban area around the smart mobility concept.

Many operations are creating a set of guiding prin­ciples for emerging mobility services and technologies to provide a consistent policy framework of evaluating new mobility services to ensure they align with current city goals as well as assist in shaping future areas of studies, policies, and programs, creating a smart city and smart mobility road map. This is redefining the way our cities will be developed in the future

Components of the Map
The smart city and smart mobility road map are made up of:

  • Mobile Apps: Provide immediate access to data and communication channels, allowing people to effi­ciently conduct business with less interruptions. For example, locate a parking spot while avoiding traffic jams; identify the nearest bus stop, bicycle, or scooter rental; or catch a streetcar while reducing circling traffic patterns.
  • Data and Technology: Using mobile applications and technology advancements, parking operations suddenly have access to large amounts of data that were previously unavailable. This data provides in­sight regarding high-congestion areas and the ability to create a pricing model designed to encourage tran­sit use through proper space utilization, as well as cre­ate a basis for the smart city and mobility platform.
  • Transportation Alternatives (First and Last Mile): Decrease traffic congestion within urban ar­eas with a transportation focus. Mobile apps provide consumers with the ability to park farther away from their intended destination followed by alternative transportation option assessments via their smart­phones. This is an invaluable solution to the issue of limited land access and perceptions of parking shortages.
  • Right-sized Parking: Parking operations are con­sistently challenged while balancing the parking supply and demand equation. Parking planning must meet the goals of the city or operation to include events, but planning for busy times often leaves an excess of parking during standard periods. To right-size parking, data is essential. This is a re­sult of transportation and mobile applications and space-counting technology. Traffic and pedestrian patterns are the key to understanding where parking is needed, how it can be relocated, and where trans­portation modes can be implemented.
  • Land Use and Infrastructure: Through data analysis, efficient land use is identified, promoting a positive financial impact on the city or opera­tion’s infrastructure investment planning as future technologies are considered. Autonomous vehicles, ­electric-vehicle charging stations, and shared-­mobility services are changing the way we think about city parking garage use. Most of these items are currently managed along curbs or ad-hoc areas with personal vehicles occupying large structures in convenient areas. With the model shift, most person­al vehicles will be expected to park in exterior areas while people use smart mobility options to reach the urban area. Garages will consist of items previously managed along curbs, creating smart mobility hubs.
  • Curb Management: As we move shared mobility services away from our curbs, we open the curb areas for a new use that is centered around the smart mo­bility concept while creating a safe environment for transit and pedestrians and freeing space for busi­ness deliveries. While new parking structures can be built, curb availability is limited. Limits on how the curb is used must be addressed as we restructure the transportation and parking environments.
  • Bicycle and Scooter Valet Services: As we ask consumers to consider alternative transportation methods, the use of bicycles and scooters has in­creased dramatically. This has also resulted in large quantities of bicycles and scooters being left haphaz­ardly on sidewalks and in messy clusters. Operators, faced with the need for a quick, easy, and convenient return of these shared items, created the concept of a bicycle and scooter valet service, ideally housed in the mobility hubs mentioned above. Consumers simply drop the bicycle or scooter off to the attendant who takes care of putting it away while the consumer continues about his business. Additionally, a bike service area is available for riders who need to repair a tire or service their bike.
  • Electric and Autonomous Vehicles: With a focus on zero emissions, smart cities will undoubtedly use shared, electric, autonomous vehicles to transport people from one point to another. Consumers will simply call for a ride using their phones, much as we do when using services such as Lyft and Uber. Ad­ditionally, with the anticipated increase in electric vehicle use, charging stations will be provided in the mobility hubs where single occupancy, gas-powered vehicles parked.

The road map will consistently change as technol­ogy advancements occur and as human beings alter their behavior and environmental considerations. However, a foundation for the smart city and mobility road map is certainly identifiable, and the development of mobile applications and smartphone/smartwatch services geared toward the transportation and parking industry is a driving factor that has propelled this new vision. The concept of curb management is only a por­tion of the smart city and smart mobility road map—a part that is dependent on other portions for success in the present as well as in the future.

TERESA TRUSSELL, CAPP, is Midwest sales director of PayByPhone. She can be reached at ttrussell@paybyphone.com.

 

 

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

Campus Expansion Demands Parking Innovation

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By Bill Smith and Craig Smith

WHEN IPMI VISITS SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, NEXT JUNE, Conference & Expo attendees will Campus Parking Texashave a chance to see an innovative parking project. H-E-B, the Texas-based grocery retailer, is close to completing the development of a new five-level parking garage that will provide 744 spaces to employees and visitors to the company’s historic Arsenal Campus. This parking project apart is set apart because the new garage is located across the busy, four-lane Cesar Chavez Boulevard from the campus and features a skybridge pedestrians can use to safely move to and from the parking garage.

The project is part of a larger expansion of H-E-B’s headquarters campus, which has created the need for more parking. The parking garage and bridge project is part of a $100 million master plan, under which the company plans to add 1,600 employ­ees to its downtown headquarters by 2030.

As might be expected, it was challenging to find the necessary space to develop parking in this bustling area, but the development team came up with a solu­tion that permitted H-E-B to build the new parking fa­cility within the corporate campus. The addition of the skybridge ensured that the new development provides safe and convenient parking for employees and visitors without affecting traffic on the busy street.

“Success often leads to a need for more parking,” says Casey Wagner, executive vice president and man­aging director of the Houston office of Walker Consul­tants, the parking consultant on the project. “Meeting that additional need often requires creativity, and this project stands out in that regard. The entire team, starting with the owner, showed a truly creative spirit.”

Meeting Increased Parking Need
In a sense, developing necessary parking was the sim­ple part of the project. There was an existing parking lot on which the new structure could be built, which served as the project footprint.

The garage was designed to architecturally comple­ment H-E-B’s historic head­quarters building, which has played an important role in San Antonio’s history. The building was originally es­tablished as an arsenal and is still known as The Arse­nal. It was established as the predecessor to Fort Sam Houston and supplied ammunition and provisions to troops in four armed conflicts, beginning with the Civil War.

Given the historic importance of H-E-B’s headquar­ters building, it was imperative that the new garage complement it architecturally while fitting seamlessly into the neighborhood. To achieve this, the garage was constructed with a mix of materials that included steel, concrete, metal screening, metal fencing, D’Hanis brick, and other masonry elements. The completed ga­rage beautifully achieves its architectural goals while providing a safe and convenient parking experience.

The five-level deck boasts a number of amenities designed to improve the parking experience, including rows of rooftop-shading trellis aligned above the park­ing spaces to provide shade and reduce the garage’s carbon footprint. LED lighting is used throughout the garage to enhance visibility and improve safety while reducing operational costs through enhanced effi­ciency. Extensive landscaping improves the project’s aesthetics while further reducing the garage’s carbon footprint. Finally, wire fencing is used to establish the borders of the parking complex.

“Improving the parking experience is a vitally important consideration when you design a parking facility on a corporate campus,” Wagner says. “If employees can park their vehicles quickly and conve­niently, they can get to their workstations or to meet­ings more efficiently and in a better frame of mind. The work day is much more pleasant for employees when it gets off to a good start in the parking facility, and those employees are typically more productive and effective at work. The Arsenal Building garage accomplishes all of these goals.”

Reaching for the Sky
What really stands out about the new garage is a pedes­trian skybridge that allows pedestrians to safely walk to the Arsenal Building. One of the most challenging aspects of the project was to create a way for drivers to traverse the busy four-lane Cesar Chavez Boulevard af­ter they park their vehicles. Of course, safety wasn’t the only consideration. Traffic management can be a night­mare for such a busy street, particularly when it needs to accommodate large numbers of people crossing the boulevard on foot during peak commuting times.

The skybridge was an obvious solution but one that had the potential to fall into the “easier-said-than-­done” category. The historic nature of the Arsenal Building was a potential roadblock. In a city like San Antonio that’s acutely aware of its history—and justifi­ably proud of it—it can be difficult to gain the necessary support for development that will fundamentally alter the architectural personality of the area. That’s one of the reasons the San Antonio Conservation Society has traditionally balked at the idea of skybridges.

Potential opposition was avoided through the cre­ation of a design that ensured the skybridge would complement local design while standing out as an ar­chitectural marvel on its own. San Antonio is a city of bridges. If you’ve had the privilege of visiting the city’s Riverwalk or taking a boat trip along the San Antonio River, you’ve experienced them. The South Alamo, Lojoya, Presa, Navarro, St. Mary’s, Market, Commerce, and Crockett bridges allow residents and tourists to cross the San Antonio River to visit its world-famous shops and restaurants.

This skybridge was designed to evoke the historic bridges along the San Antonio River and complement the city’s beautiful landscape. Designed by project ar­chitect Ford, Powell & Carson, it is constructed of cast concrete with chipped edges and stacked clay tile.
Casting the necessary concrete and installing the skybridge onsite would have required closing Che Guevara Boulevard for several days, which wasn’t really an option. As such, the skybridge was built off­site with precast concrete and delivered to the site in three sections, which were then assembled and lifted into place in a single night, while traffic was negligi­ble. The finished skybridge is 160 feet long and 10 feet tall by 10 feet across. It stands 27 feet above the busy four-lane roadway.

“The pedestrian bridge connecting the garage to the Arsenal Building was the ideal solution,” Wagner says. “It’s an essential element of the parking program because it provides safe and convenient access to and from the garage, while minimizing the impact of the parking garage on traffic in the area.

PROJECT DETAILS
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Owner: H-E-B
Development team: Walker Consultants, parking consultant and structural engineer
Ford, Powell & Carson, architectural firm
Whiting-Turner, general contractor
Number of parking spaces: 744
Levels: Five elevated decks and two bays
Estimated construction budget: $19 million

The work day is much more pleasant for employees when it gets off to a good start in the parking facility, and those employees are typically more productive and effective at work. The Arsenal Building garage accomplishes all of these goals.

“It’s also a stunning addition to the local architec­ture,” Wagner continues. “The way it reflects San Anto­nio’s character is tremendous.”

The completed garage beautifully achieves its architectural goals while providing a safe and convenient parking experience.

Read the article here.

BILL SMITH is principal of Smith-Phillips Communications and contributing editor to Parking & Mobility. He can be reached at bsmith@smith-phillips.com.

CRAIG SMITH is a freelance writer. He can be reached at smithcw48@gmail.com.

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

The Green Standard: A Business Model for an Evolving Industry

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By Trevyr Meade

OUR INDUSTRY NOW STANDS AT A MAJOR INFLECTION POINT. In just a few short years, we’ve seen the foundation for a new mobility paradigm take shape, the emergence of climate-­related risk, and people’s expectations for business’s role within society evolve. These chang­es have created a tremendous opportunity, but thriving in this more fluid and complex envi­ronment will require a new business model—one that enables organizations to be more nimble and better integrated within the ecosystems they operate. Luckily, such a model exists: corporate social responsibility.

Investopedia defines corporate social responsibility as a self-regulating business model that helps a company be so­cially accountable—to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. This framework provides a pathway for businesses to connect with and better understand the needs of all stakeholders who affect their business, whether customers, business partners, employees, policy-makers, technology innovators, the public, or the environment.

“Stakeholder engagement is absolutely critical to our oper­ations,” says Scott Morrissey, senior director of sustainability at Denver International Airport in Colorado. “The airport commu­nity is so large and varied that we need to work with our airline and concessions partners and communicate with our employees and passengers to achieve our ambitious sustainability goals. Having as many conversations as we can, both with individuals and groups, ensures that we can be responsive to the needs of all community stakeholders.”

Broadening Focus
At its core, corporate social responsibility is about broaden­ing an organization’s focus from the bottom line of an income statement to a holistic accounting of all its stakeholders’ needs. Businesses that embrace this model create feedback loops that increase awareness of emerging risks and opportunities. As the pace of change within our industry hastens, business­es that identify these risks and opportunities most quickly will be positioned to adapt and thrive.

The transportation evolution is just one example of how the business of parking and mobility is changing. In 2010, catching a ride in more than 700 cities by tapping your cellphone, choosing to commute via a shared electric scooter, or experi­encing a fully autonomous vehicle was unthinkable. While these and other innovations have affected our industry, the true extent of the change these technologies will bring is yet to be realized. For example, by 2030, 125 million electric vehicles are projected to be on the road, and the shared micro-mobility market in the U.S. could grow to $300 billion.

“Installing mobility ameni­ties such as bicycle parking and ­electric-vehicle charging stations has enabled us to lower our environmental impact while enhancing the tenant experience,” explains Edmée Knight, sustainability manager at Unico Properties. “It is important for us to stay abreast of new mobility solutions as they come online so we can understand their potential to augment our sustainability work and improve access to our buildings.”

Engaging with innovators and policy-makers who are shaping the future of emerging transportation technologies has become critically important to busi­nesses operating in our industry.

The Real Risk
A broader trend that’s emerged in recent years is climate risk becoming real. In 2018, asset manager Schroders assessed 11,000 listed global companies and estimated that accounting for physical climate risk could, on average, reduce their value by 2 to 3 per­cent. Given this information, Moody’s recent purchase of a majority stake in Four Twenty Seven comes as no surprise. Four Twenty Seven evaluates physical risks associated with climate-related factors and other en­vironmental issues. To date, the relatively young com­pany has developed a data set that covers over 2,000 listed companies.

As the impacts of a changing climate become clearer, understanding your business’s relationship with the environment will become a basic requirement for success. Moving forward, those businesses that do not understand how resource constraints and severe weather events will impact their organization will har­ness substantial unknown risk.
Society is also now demanding more responsibility from corpora­tions. The public no longer believes that merely limiting environmental harm constitutes responsible busi­ness. Eighty-one percent of respon­dents to The Conference Board’s Global Consumer Confidence Survey feel strongly that companies should help improve the environment. When seeking work, a similar trend is clear: 75 percent of millennials (30 percent of today’s workforce) are willing to take a pay cut to work for a socially responsible company. Meeting legal envi­ronmental standards is no longer sufficient. High-per­forming businesses today must understand how they affect society and the environment and demonstrate to their communities and employees that they are striving to improve that impact.

The transformation our industry is undergoing will create immense opportunity but will also bring about new risks. Engaging with all the stakeholders who impact your organization provides a clear path for managing what will be a dynamic future. Corpo­rate social responsibility is a framework for managing stakeholder engagement that enables you to adapt to new opportunities and mitigate risks before others are aware they exist. Embracing this framework will enable your organization to thrive in what is quickly becoming a much more complex and fluid parking and mobility industry.

Read the article here.

TREVYR MEADE is certification program lead with Green Business Certification, Inc. and a member of IPMI’s Sustainability Committee. He can be reached at tmeade@gbci.org.

Parking & Mobility Article, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

ON THE FRONTLINE: That’s Karma, Vincent

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By Cindy Campbell

ONE OF THE RUNNING JOKES I HAVE WITH FRIENDS centers on the theory that I have good parking karma—or is it CARma? (I digress.)

Let’s focus on the concept of karma for a minute. It’s been said that there is no such thing as luck and that we make our own luck. I believe the same can be said about having good karma.

To illustrate, let’s consider a recent travel experience I had: One of my flights was delayed, causing me to miss connections. The end result was a two-hour Uber ride to arrive at my final destination. Fully anticipating a long, unpleasant ride, I dreaded requesting the car. But rather than creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, I did a little self-talk, changed my attitude and outlook, and decided it actually had the potential of being an inter­esting journey.

Meeting Vincent

Driver “Vincent” called me in advance of his arrival. He knew the curb designated for transportation network companies would be chaotic and wanted to coordinate with me in advance of the pick-up. Once at the curb, he exited his car and greeted me with a warm smile and a handshake: “Welcome! Let’s get you settled in for a comfortable ride.” He knew this was going to be a long trip and made the effort to put my mind at ease. With his congenial approach, Vincent had already conveyed that this trip would likely be a pleasant experience.

As he drove, we chatted about the challenges with air travel and about our respective families. Vincent had served as a pilot in the Air Force. After his mil­itary service, he worked as a special assistant to a now-­retired airline CEO. Vincent saw this executive as a mentor who projected a professional passion for al­ways putting the customer first.
That revelation led to a conversation on the topic of how badly people sometimes treat customer service representatives. I told him stories about the parking and mobility industry and the disrespectful attitudes and behaviors our frontline professionals encounter. “You know, I’d never really considered what you folks have to deal with. That’s gotta be a tough job!”

Vincent was right. It can be tough. As service professionals, we understand that people can be downright mean and disrespectful. They can be intolerant, dismissive, and unwilling to take personal responsibility.

The Good Stuff

I told him, “While that’s true, I also have to say that on a daily basis, we encounter plenty of good people. Kind people. People who recognize and appreciate what we do to keep everything circulating and safe. The problem is when we fail to recognize this, when we only remember and recognize the unpleasant contacts, it can make our work life so much less fulfilling.” For the rest of the drive, we shared positive, sometimes funny, stories about people we had each encountered over the years. Time flew.

Two hours later, we arrived at my destination. Vincent got out of the car and placed my bags on the curb. He shook my hand again. “Ms. Campbell, this trip has been the highlight of my week. I can’t entirely put my finger on why, but I feel happi­er—and that was a long drive! Thanks for that.”

That’s karma, Vincent.

A chance encounter presented the opportunity to extend a positive attitude, or karma, toward another person in hopes that he would return the favor. On this day, my effort was not in vain.

The reality is that I could have missed out on an amazing human encounter had I not caught myself and adjusted my attitude. We can be our own worst enemy when it comes to dealing with the bad attitudes hurled our way. When we choose to extend the proverbial olive branch to others—even when they don’t seem to deserve it—we sometimes have the ability to turn a negative encounter into something special.

Read the article here.

CINDY CAMPBELL is IPMI’s senior training and development specialist. She is available for onsite training and professional development and can be reached at campbell@parking-mobility.org.

 

IPMI Blog, Resources

Use Your Data!

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By Brett Wood, CAPP

I can recall a moment about 10 years ago when we were collecting and analyzing data from a major U.S. city to help validate and construct a new pricing and management scheme. I was reviewing the time sheet of one of my co-workers who was entering and analyzing the data and his cell notes for the day were just the word “DATA,” written over and over about 1,000 times. I could feel his mental breakdown through the computer screen.

Data has become a critical cog in our decision-making relative to our parking and mobility programs’ performance. We are supposed to use it to apply policies, communicate change, and define success. But we are often so overwhelmed by the mountain of data we generate that it becomes crippling to achieve these principles. When we lose control of the data we are supposed to be managing, we risk losing the intended direction of our programs.

One of the key focus areas for managing and maintaining data is defining process and practice for capturing and analyzing data. This is best completed with the assistance of technology, dashboards, and the application of key performance indicators and benchmarks to measure change. I’m excited to bring some insights and information about these areas to the upcoming IPMI Leadership Summit in Pittsburgh, Pa. Hoping you can join me and 99 of the industry’s best and brightest to learn more about this and a variety of great topics!

Brett Wood, CAPP, is a parking consultant with Kimley-Horn. He will speak on this topic at IPMI’s 2019 Leadership Summit, Oct. 3-4 in Pittsburgh, Pa.