How Construction Teams Can Avoid the Public Parking Headache

Construction crews already have their work cut out for them. The labor is physically and mentally demanding and projects must be completed precisely. The hours are long and irregular and the tasks often dangerous. But raising the structures in which we work and live is an indispensable job and it’s up to all of us to make construction work easier, more rewarding, and more convenient. Every business owes its workspace to a construction team, so it’s important to pay their hard work back with service offerings that consider their needs. As a company in the smart parking space, we’ve put a lot of thought into how we can make life better for our construction professionals: by simplifying their commute.  

 Construction team members must all commute to their job sites, a task which can vary in difficulty. Suburban or isolated projects have ample parking available, but downtown parking is another matter. Free spaces are few and far between, paid spaces are often prohibitively expensive and affordable spaces often too far from the construction site. When possible, team leaders make deals with nearby commercial lots to set aside room for their crew, but there is no guarantee these spaces will be close enough not to require a mini-commute just to get from vehicle to workplace. It seems as though public parking is just not an efficient solution to the construction commuting problem. 

 But for all the public lots full to bursting with cars, there are plenty of private properties with parking lots going at least partially unused. Especially since COVID kicked off the telecommuting and online shopping revolutions, privately owned business and residential properties often have an excess of available parking spots. With the right service, construction team leaders can reserve a block of spots, just as with a public lot. But privately owned parking lots often have more spots available for a negotiable price. And these sites might be closer to the job site than public lots, which tend to have more central locations, not to mention are also more secure. 

 If parking is not available near the project site, agents can also arrange comprehensive transportation to and from their reserved lots. Comfortable shuttles can provide a space to relax and socialize, removing the need to worry about further transportation after parking. If teams are parked across multiple lots, the shuttle can make a circuit of all of these, whether they be public or private, or requires one trip or multiple. The goal is to create a seamless parking-to-work experience where construction staff need not worry about anything besides finding their designated spot, and working safely and efficiently. 

 Ultimately, the construction team’s convenience should be the parking broker’s primary concern. It is vital to take care of the team’s and its leaders’ parking needs in a comprehensive fashion. Mobility from spot-to-site is important, and so is handling all billing and payment regarding parking. Ideally, these companies should maintain a relationship with potential nearby parking sites to provide the most flexibility to their clients. For many private property owners, filling their unused parking spots with a fleet of cars from a construction team is a convenient and stress-free source of income. The parking broker gets to solve two clients’ problems at once, all while ensuring construction personnel are relaxed and ready to work after their commute. 

Park It! How Unused Spaces can Help the Trucking Industry – and the Environment

Back in the 1970s, there was a pop-culture craze based around long-haul truckers. Movies like Convoy and television shows such as BJ and the Bear romanticized life on the open road and portrayed drivers as freewheeling iconoclasts. And while there is something undeniably cool about an 18-wheeler being driven by a bad-ass loner (accompanied by his pet monkey) snaking its way across the country, one thing that was never shown was a decidedly less hip aspect of trucking: parking at the end of the day. Fortunately, this is a major problem for the transportation industry, and it’s also an opportunity for property owners to generate additional revenues. 

According to trucking industry magazine Fleet Owner, parking for truckers is an acute problem that is only getting worse. While there are generally plenty of spaces at truck stops along highways, once trucks enter cities, they have few options after dropping off their cargo. That’s because city parking is far more expensive than it is in exurban areas, and it can literally cost drivers hundreds of dollars to find a place for their vehicles. Needless to say, most drivers can’t spend that kind of money, and they often drive up to 50 miles outside of their destinations cities for the night, only to return the next day to pick up the next load. We are talking about an extra hundred miles of driving every day for long-haul truckers. 

That has a massive environmental impact – literally millions of pounds of carbon are being released into the environment every year just from the unnecessary roundtrips that truckers need just to park their vehicles. But there are other costs as well, including economic losses. Because truckers are restricted on the number of hours they are allowed to drive each day, these long-distance parking searches cut into time they can actually spend delivering shipments. And then there are the costs to the local economy. Trucks cause an inordinate amount of damage to roadways, meaning that local and state governments need to increase the frequency of repairs. And, of course, there is the contribution to traffic, which is already at a tipping point in many American urban centers. 

The current urban parking situation isn’t good for anyone but it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s because there are literally hundreds of thousands of acres of unused parking spaces that sit dormant every night. Literally every mall and shopping center is closed from 10 PM until the next morning. The majority of factories have empty parking lots overnight. This means their parking lots are completely empty during the exact hours when truckers need to park their vehicles. This presents an incredible opportunity for mall operators and others to generate extra income by allowing trucks to park on their property. And the best part of this approach is that it creates zero disruption for their core business. For example, a shopping center could allow long-haul truckers to park between the hours of 10 PM and 7 AM, which would give them ample time to clear out the lots before staff and shoppers show up. 

Of course, they would also need to factor in things such as wear and tear, providing electrical hook-ups, and noise and pollution mitigation practices. And, of course a digital marketplace to make the booking and administrative process smooth. But these are fairly easy to do and would not present a major barrier to successfully executing this kind of program. All it takes is a little bit of creativity and a willingness to think outside the box when it comes to uncovering new revenue streams and utilizing space efficiently. 

Parking Meter Apps and the Potential of Smart Parking

Looking for parking can be especially frustrating in areas with metered parking. Drivers go through the stress of finding a spot to win the privilege of paying for it. Once, this meant hoping you had enough quarters to pay for adequate time, or even sneaking out to feed the machine when you exceeded the maximum time, hoping a meter attendant didn’t get wise. As a great source of revenue for cities (New York City’s meters generated $228 million in fiscal year 2018) it seems paid street parking is here to stay. Thankfully, innovations in smart parking are helping to take the aggravation out of this civic contribution. 

Apps like Spacer have changed meter parking by allowing drivers to simply pay by phone. This saves people from having to scrounge up quarters and lets them pay to park in a matter of seconds. Widespread adoption of parking apps shows just how ready the public is to dispense with the aggravation of coin-fed parking meters. Hovering at 5% or 10% adoption a few years ago, cities are now seeing 70% to 80% of their parking transactions done through mobile apps. As with navigation apps like Waze, consumers want their digital devices to take the irritation out of a previously challenging aspect of driving.  

But city parking apps do more than just help users feed the meter. Developers are releasing feature-rich programs that include ways to improve the parking experience. New parking apps show landmarks like coffee shops or specific stores by the user’s spot to help easily find their car. Feeding the meter becomes a thing of the past as users receive an alert when their time is about to run out so they can automatically add more time. Even better, these apps reduce the chance of overpaying, as drivers can end their billed parking session whenever they like, rather than pay in advance for an estimated period of time. 

Of course, systems like these are only scratching the surface of smart parking’s potential. All of these features could be integrated into a single app to centralize and streamline the parking experience. A comprehensive parking app could include public meter payments, private lot payments, and reservations not just to gated public lots but to privately owned parking structures, including those of property owners who sign up to monetize their unused spaces. These apps could even let users reserve street parking in advance, either down to the specific spot or within range of their destination. Smart parking can make the driving experience much easier, so it’s no surprise consumers are embracing these possibilities in a huge way. 

The Latest Trends in Smart Vehicles and What They Mean for Parking

The future is now. Many of our science fiction visionaries’ predictions have come true; while we are all still waiting on our jetpacks and laser swords, futuristic innovations like artificial intelligence (AI), smart cities, augmented reality, and more are changing the way we live to match the wildest dreams of futurists past. And just like the horseless carriage once wowed people at World’s Fair exhibitions, today the driverless car is edging out of science fiction and into science fact, with prototypes and even fleets of almost-ready autonomous vehicles roaming the streets of our major cities. 

It’s fun to point to these robo-cars solving their trolley problems and joke about Skynet and Maximum Overdrive, but a robot uprising is really the least of our concerns when it comes to autonomous vehicles. More mundane issues must take center stage, including the drop in driving jobs, and — central to our priorities at WhereiPark — the future of parking. Let’s take a look at some of the latest advancements in connected and autonomous cars and think about what that means for tomorrow’s parking lots. It may not be jetpacks and laser swords, but it’s going to feel pretty important if a fleet of autonomous cars boxes you in on your way home from the store. 

Even without officially taking the wheel, AI is going to be influencing the way we drive. Facial recognition software will be able to identify driver fatigue to increase safety and even take over in case of driver error. Many of these devices are already in place in the fleets of automated delivery vehicles and robo-taxis cruising around our cities, which often still require human oversight in case of emergencies. On the business side of driverless development, more companies are consolidating their research and pooling their resources to deliver the first fully autonomous vehicle. Although Elon Musk promised to do so by 2021, it seems the road to full autonomy is still packed with human-driven vehicles. 

When these fully robotic cars emerge, they will have a profound influence on parking. Just from a geometric perspective, vehicles without drivers can park very close together, since there’s no need for a driver to have room to get in. Meanwhile, driverless vehicles like robo-taxis that still take passengers will cruise instead of parking, leaving spaces unused but increasing urban gridlock. This means vehicles will make increasingly efficient use of space, leaving more existing parking space open for other uses.  

Many property owners will eventually expand their actual buildings into what used to be unused parking space, while others will turn that space into open-air shopping or recreation centers, or even community gathering areas such as urban gardens. In this way, autonomous vehicles are just one more factor transforming the parking landscape and encouraging property owners to future-proof their lots for maximum value.  

Could Ghent, Belgium, Become the Face of Smart Parking?

The Smart Cities revolution is proceeding full steam ahead, with population centers worldwide adopting new ways to integrate data and connectivity into the urban experience. It is fascinating to watch this transition and see where the newest innovations are coming from: pandemic-resistant urban planning in Barcelona, electric driverless trams in Hong Kong, a hydrogen-powered city at the base of Mt. Fuji. But while many of these ideas are still theoretical, the city of Ghent, Belgium, is already implementing a new dynamic traffic control system. Set to premiere in 2022, the system will help drivers find parking, avoid traffic jams, and more.

Overseen by a consortium of local businesses specializing in intelligent traffic infrastructure, smart traffic solutions, and LED displays, the project will see Ghent replacing the digital occupancy information displays outside parking garages with full-color LED displays at 50 locations. These new displays will contain information about the occupancy of the present parking lot as well as those nearby, and share traffic information and alerts about roadwork, street closures, and travel times to nearby destinations. The R4 Ring Road around Ghent will also host digital signs guiding drivers to nearby park-and-rides, all of which will be updated in real time using a unique digital management system.

This central management system will combine many traffic applications to track parking plus guide and control traffic. The city will have access to moment-to-moment information on traffic speed and mobility, the availability of public transit, and the capacity of parking in lots and structures throughout Ghent. This data can be combined with information from third parties and from crowdsourcing, then distributed to drivers using the digital LED screens. And the collected data can be shared via open source to support information of all kinds throughout the city, allowing driving and planning apps to access the same data and help users plan their trips.

This initiative in Ghent is just one example of how cities are swiftly adapting smart technologies to make life more convenient. In this case, digital communications, cloud data, crowdsourcing, and more come together to help drivers quickly and easily find parking, changing with every moment to keep up with developing conditions. As time goes by, new upgrades could become available, in the form of mobile apps that bring the information on the LED signs to the driver no matter where they are, or augmented reality interfaces in tomorrow’s vehicles that highlight departing cars or empty spaces, taking all the stress out of the parking experience. 

For the parking lot owners and operators in Ghent, this new innovation promotes an even distribution of drivers and less stress among customers, but it also presents business opportunities. The owners of private parking lots — for example, in multifamily residences or office parks — could partner with the city to be included among the available parking facilities listed in the system, at once offering shorter drives between lots and less crowded lots overall, as well as overflow parking for busy days, while monetizing their own unused spaces. 

Ghent is proof that it is vital to recognize not only the usefulness of these new ideas, but the opportunities they represent. But with the technology that powers smart cities growing by leaps and bounds, how long until some city offers the same benefits via mobile phone (or automobile display) without having to place any signs?

The WhereiPark Guide to Holiday Parking

Here we are at the end of another year. 2021 had its own troubles but at least wasn’t the relentless nightmare of the year before. With November (October for Canadians) over, we’re done Giving Thanks for that and can move on to our mostly joyous December holiday of choice. As everyone knows — if they celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Festivus, or just enjoy the yearly drama over Starbucks cups — one thing about the holidays is exhausting even without worrying about the Omicron variant: parking. Whether heading to a party in a snowy neighborhood, doing some last-minute gift shopping, or leaving your car near the airport for a trip back home, long searches and raw nerves can lead to a stressful (or sometimes even tragic) experience. 

This December, we thought we’d share some safe parking tips for drivers and people who sympathize with drivers. To stay in the holiday spirit and avoid accidents, people on the road or who live near parking spots can take this advice and spread a little goodwill and good sense going into 2022. 

The bulk of our focus goes to drivers themselves, since they’re the ones searching for hard-to-find spots. One key thing to remember is, especially in parking lots, people come and go so frequently that you’re bound to find something. Beyond that, be mindful of the following:

• Keep calm and drive on: Don’t obsess over finding a spot, or make sudden stops if you see someone leaving. Drive safely and predictably, and slow down gradually. 

• Be willing to walk: The closer to a busy destination, the more competition for spots. Find a safe place to park within comfortable walking distance. Walking is also a good way to keep warm and fit, so it’s a win-win.

• They’re walking here!: Watch carefully for pedestrians when pulling into or out of a parking spot. Do not “stalk” people returning to their cars — politely asking if you can follow them to their spot is acceptable. 

• No, for real, keep calm: Avoid road-rage at all costs. If other people want to honk and curse and spot-steal, that’s on them. Escalating tense situations with strangers is never a good idea. 

• Arrive Alive: If you’re planning on having a drink or two… or three, plan ahead and call a rideshare service. If you must drive, and plan to drink, don’t be afraid to leave your car overnight and come back for it.

December is a frequent time for parties in residential neighborhoods and suburbs, and residents can take steps to reduce drivers’ stress as they’d like others to do for them. If possible, park all your vehicles in your own driveway rather than taking up street parking. If you live in an area that gets snow and you’ve got the energy, get rid of evening snowfalls blocking street spaces when you shovel your driveway, especially if street cleaners miss it. Every little bit of reduced aggravation is one less chance a tipsy reveler doesn’t sour the season for everyone.

Finally, owners of parking lots and structures can make their unused spaces available for holiday visitors. With office buildings emptied out for the holidays (assuming everyone isn’t already working remotely) and entire families of residents off visiting relatives, building owners can open their facilities to create more holiday parking. Apps can even let people make appointments for such spots, taking vehicles out of the scramble for places to stop. As with all things in the festive season, a bit of planning and generosity makes that holiday cup of Starbucks all the more satisfying. 

What a Growing Trend of Bicycle Commuting Could Mean for Parking Managers

Bike commuting has been a growing trend in the United States for well over two decades, but the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has kicked it into a full-on trend. Since 2000, the number of regular bike commuters in the US has grown by over 60%. The pandemic’s effect on in-person office buildings has skewed the data for 2020, but other studies conducted on biking reveal that 4% of the US population aged 18 or older rode a bike for the first time (or at least the first time in over a year) during the pandemic. That means over 100 million new cyclists on the streets and bike paths of America in just one year, and it’s a safe bet that some of that number will carry over into cyclist commuters.

For parking managers, bicycle commuters provide an interesting target market. The whole goal of bike commuting is to avoid using a vehicle, after all, many offices already have bike racks ready and waiting just outside their doors. But there’s an entire subsection of bike commuters for whom parking garages could play a vital role - they’re called hybrid bike commuters, and they use a mix of bicycles, personal vehicles, public transit, and ridesharing in order to get where they need to go.

Do your parking facilities have the means to accommodate such hybrid bike commuters? Some hybrid commuters prefer to drive or take public transit as close to their offices as possible, then use a bike to finish the commute. Others do the reverse, riding their bikes from their homes to the nearest commuter hub. In either case, it means they’re looking for safe places to leave their bikes for long periods of time. Is there a safe space for bikes to be left during the day, or overnight? If so, how well do you advertise it? Providing a secure area for bikes is a selling feature, and as word gets out you may even find cyclists are willing to pay for that extra security rather than leave their valuable bicycles unattended at a standard bike rack or locked to a street sign.

There’s another subset of cyclists you should also consider - e-bike riders. E-bikes use electric motors to make riding even easier, which makes them capable of longer commuting distances than traditional bicycles. But e-bikes have two qualities that you can leverage - they’re expensive, meaning their security is an important concern, and they need to be recharged in between uses. While some e-bikes have removable batteries, others need to be plugged in the old-fashioned way. Add a secure e-bike charging station to your garage, and see what happens.

Cyclists are an attractive potential market for parking managers for another reason as well - space. The amount of physical parking space a bike needs is far less than a car, especially as SUVs and trucks in the US seem to be bigger every year. Bike storage also allows you to make use of corner areas and other spaces in your garage that would otherwise be unoccupied, increasing your overall potential for profit.

While America may never fully embrace bicycle commuting the way much of the world has, the likelihood that environmental concerns, an ongoing shift towards remote-optional commuting, and other factors mean that bikes will continue to be an important part of the daily commuting routine. Savvy parking managers will find a way to capitalize on it.

What’s at Stake in the 2021 Infrastructure Bill

As of the writing of this blog, US politicians have yet to move forward with the $1,200,000,000,000 (zeroes written out for effect) Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This is potentially bad news for the nation, as roads, bridges, and other vital infrastructure are in dire need of attention. As you might imagine, that $1.2T price tag covers a lot of work. For parking managers, the bill should hold special interest as it could affect both public transit and road conditions in a way that would fundamentally change the amount of drivers out there in need of parking every day. Here’s exactly what’s at stake in this new bill, and how it may impact parking management in the near future.

Physical infrastructure upgrades

Roads, bridges, railways, public transit… This bill contains funding for comprehensive upgrades to all physical infrastructure in the United States. Many of these repairs and replacements are long overdue. The spending bill would also contain an investment in clean drinking water and wastewater infrastructure - in fact, it would be the largest federal investment in these important ventures in history, and would bring clean drinking water to some 10-million US families. 

Obviously, it’s an important bill to pass. But for parking managers, the important part is in the upgrades to public transit and roadways. As public transit improves, parking patterns will shift. It’s important that parking managers investigate what such changes might mean for their parking lots and garages. If a new light rail station is going in near you, what will it mean for commuter parking? Will you lose customers because they’re now taking the train, or will you need more spaces to accommodate commuters who are driving to the station to depart for their jobs? Start predicting now so that you’re in the best position to reap the rewards if and when these changes happen.

New permit processes and faster approvals

The proposed bill would include measures to modernize the project permit process and encourage private funding for construction costs. It would also remove significant amounts of red tape from the permit-approval process in order to speed times to construction. Together, this means it would stimulate future construction projects - which could have a big impact on parking patterns.

What happens to street parking in an area where a new, 100-unit apartment gets built, or when a new shopping center is added to the business district? These are great opportunities for new business ventures as a parking manager, and if this bill gets passed with these provisions in place it could mean that such opportunities start arriving quickly and plentifully.

Planning for the future, including the environment

The bill isn’t just about repairing and replacing old infrastructure - it includes provisions for building for the future. That includes new airports and other major projects that would impact parking patterns and create new opportunities for parking managers. It also includes $100B (at the time of this writing) for investment in climate and sustainability improvements. Since ride shares and public transit are good for the environment, it’s possible that some of that $100B investment could be used to build new public parking options in order to encourage fewer vehicles on the streets. 

Of course, all of this is contingent on what makes it through to the final bill. While infrastructure spending is something that should concern all Americans to some degree, it’s especially important for parking managers to pay attention and see what’s coming their way. And it’s always worth contacting your elected officials to let your voice be heard when a bill like this has so much potential to create new business opportunities for you!

Managing Parking in Low-Emission Zones

The recently adopted European Climate Law sets some meaningful restrictions on carbon emissions and other environmental hazards within the European Union. In the wake of this new law, European cities are implementing more and more Low Emission Zones - areas with stricter regulations on vehicles and other sources of pollution. While these areas already existed in Europe prior to the new law (Sweden essentially introduced Low Emission Zones in the mid-90s under a different name) cities are now incentivized to implement more Low Emission Zones (LEZ) in order to help the EU hit its goals for climate neutrality. And there’s no reason to believe LEZ will remain solely a European phenomenon. In fact, they already exist throughout Asia as well, and the City of Santa Monica introduced North America’s first Low Emission Zone in early 2021.

It’s only a matter of time before the idea spreads, and parking managers need to be ready when it does. 

So what exactly is a Low Emission Zone? As you may expect, it’s a designated area where total greenhouse gas emissions face a hard limit. This means that only a certain number of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles will be allowed into the area each day - and for some of the strictest zones that number could be as low as zero. 

What this means for commuters is that public transit and park-and-ride situations suddenly become much more important. And for parking managers, it means both increased responsibility and increased opportunity. A strategically placed parking garage on the outskirts of a LEZ, or in a major commuter corridor that feeds into multiple LEZ, could see a lot of traffic. Even a free-to-use park-and-ride lot could make a pretty attractive option for advertisers, opening up a possible revenue stream if there’s a place for paid advertisements on the premises. 

But parking managers will also need to take some extra steps to ensure compliance with LEZ requirements. Fortunately, those are generally pretty easy. In the EU, it’s as simple as monitoring the number of vehicles heading in and out of your garage or lot. Which happens to be the exact thing that WhereiPark technology does for you. While it’s possible that local LEZ restrictions will want more detail, it’s a safe bet that these basic metrics will form the backbone of Low Emission Zone enforcement at any parking facility. Additionally, WhereiPark plants a tree for every new parker thanks to their recent partnership with One Tree Planted.
Parking trends are changing constantly, especially with the ongoing work-from-home experiment still fully underway. Low Emission Zones are just another potential change to be anticipated, and those who have plans in place for them when they arrive in the states en masse will be in the best positions to capitalize on them when the time comes. In other words - it’s time to start planning for LEZ parking options, so you’re ahead of the curve when they arrive.

WhereiPark Plants Over 1000 Trees in Haiti

Earlier this year, we partnered with One Tree Planted to support global reforestation efforts, raise awareness about the importance of ecosystem, create social impact by providing jobs, and empower our consumers with sustainable actions! We’re excited to announce that we’ve planted over 1000 trees in Haiti.

We decided to plant trees in Haiti because reforestation is a major challenge for Haiti. Centuries of over-farming and poor agricultural methods have destroyed the region’s soil. Erosion makes it very difficult to grow food, and dramatically increases the impact of natural disasters. Planting trees here will help restore nutrients to the soil and teach local farmers how to use the land responsibly and profitably.Top of Form

WhereiPark cares deeply about creating a business that gives back to nature and we’re excited to be able to announce our first tree planting initiative!