Cities have historically tackled parking problems by providing off-street solutions, such as parking minimums or multi-level car parking. However, the core of the problem lies with free, haphazard, and unmanaged on-street parking that undermines these off-street solutions. Off-street facilities remain highly under-utilized if parking regulations for a nearby street is free. The saturated streets falsely indicate a parking shortage as a problem to which cities responded with increased parking supply. The long-term effect was designing streets that accommodate vehicles and aren’t people-friendly. Authorities have realized this and updated parking policies that bring optimal solutions to both on-street and off-street parking issues. Technological intervention is imperative as cities continue to resolve parking woes with various improvements.
A curb management solution can address these parking problems by creating, managing, and sharing parking regulations in a visual and easy-to-navigate way. Solutions such as CurbIQ can end on-street parking chaos and can help improve the off-street parking systems.
The following are the possibilities of on-street parking management using CurbIQ that can impact off-street parking management and its turnover:
Measuring the existing parking supply is the first step to alleviate any parking issues and understand the function of each space (for example, vehicle type or users allocated). It is crucial to have a digitized parking map and tools that generate data sets to understand the available parking infrastructure. Data standardization of digital data sets streamlines sharing of information among various stakeholders.
Digital data sets of curb regulations improve parking situations and assist in faster planning and management. CurbIQ’s Curb Converter provides a solution to digitize data based on the type of available data in the city.
Curb Viewer can act as a vendor aggregator portal to help civic agencies keep track of all the privately owned lots and multi-level car parking (MLCP). The application can gather data from these vendors and display parking profiles in terms of supply, demand, and fees, enabling constant monitoring of off-street privately-owned parking lots or MLCP.
Due to a skewed demand for free on-street parking, MLCPs remain under-utilized. It is essential to have knowledge of parking supply near MLCPs to increase the turnover ratio. Curb Viewer gives a holistic view of the parking supply in the city that allows municipalities to understand the on-street parking supply around these MLCPs. The solution also allows the user to understand supply based on dates and times, restrictions, and user type. With insights into spaces and parking times, cities can restrict on-street parking to accommodate for the efficient use of MLCPs.
Parking fees can help as a parking management tool to off-load high demand from on-street to off-street. Parking prices of on-street that surround off-street facilities are loosely set and are not demand-responsive/market-driven. CurbIQ can help to set demand-responsive prices.
With Curb Manager, cities can make decisions about curbside regulations and their attributes. They can actively plan and designate parking regulations such that the spaces are distributed between various users at various times of the day based on demand and optimize the curbside. Use Curb Manager to edit existing regulations around the off-street facilities or create new ones as needed.
Curb Analyzer can help understand the demand and supply side of the parking. It is a data-enriched tool that can analyze parking in zones created by users of varying sizes. Use data-supported insights to adjust parking prices, times, and enforcement. The tool can also measure and compare the performance of two different scenarios.
Once the optimal scenario is selected, a user can publish these changes to reflect across all other modules that can also be public facing. Proposed changes can be pushed into Variable Message Signs (VMS) boards across a city to disseminate information to the public. Users can export proposed regulations in GeoJSON, PDF, and Excel format for further evaluation.
Parking price can be used as a parking management tool. Setting it loosely undermines its value. When cities convey parking price as a tax/cost recovery approach, it receives resentment from the public. The market-driven and frequently changing parking prices can create a perspective of parking price as a management tool.
The absence of tools to disseminate parking regulations results in a lack of knowledge on what or where a violation is and the expected penalty. Confusing signage leads to a lack of organization around parking vehicles and will not effectively communicate the penalties to the public.
Public Facing Curb Viewer (PFCV) can display real-time data for both on-street and off-street parking facilities. The drivers can gauge occupancy levels and make better trip decisions, which reduces cruising and other externalities such as vehicle emissions, driver frustration, and congestion.
Effective enforcement can reduce the chaos and bring in order. It reduces ill effects such as illegal parking and double parking. Currently, monitoring and enforcement require deploying a vast number of people on-site where parking is prohibited. Enforcement causes greater deterrence to park in prohibited/saturated streets and re-directs to off-street facilities.
CurbIQ can help bridge the gap in data communication between the enforcement and the supply side. CurbRules API provides third parties with regulation information such as parking rates and rules on-street to detect a violation in real-time.
Cities have started to note that saturated on-street parking despite the infrastructure is not because of parking shortage but often because the nearby off-street facilities are almost empty. On-street parking management helps cities understand the investment required on off-street facilities and increases the willingness for its usage.
CurbIQ helps to resolve the miscellaneous challenges cities face with on-street management with enough consideration to off-street solutions. While parking control and management can be used as a Traffic Demand Management (TDM) measure, it also has a huge revenue potential for the cities. CurbIQ can help cities see value in their assets and resolve some of the pressing issues they face. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
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