Resource Search

Just Published: A Practical Guide for Solving Accessible Parking Challenges

August 12, 2019

The IPMI-led Accessible Parking Coalition (APC), has just published Let’s Make Accessible Parking More Accessible. This groundbreaking, free, downloadable 24-page publication, written for parking and mobility professionals and decision-makers, was developed by a team of IPMI members serving on the APC Advisory Council, in conjunction with advocacy groups for people Read More »

Not All Clouds Are Created Equal

July 2, 2019

By Sam Goodner CHANGE CAN BE DIFFICULT when it comes to the servers, hard drives, and other hardware and software systems that have long served as the foundation of your company’s IT infrastruc­ture. There’s something reassuring about seeing those machines on their racks with their fans whirring and lights blinking. Read More »

Eyes on the Trends

June 1, 2019

By Brian Shaw, CAPP AS MOBILITY PROFESSIONALS, we have to try to stay aware of trends in our industry. Most of us were caught off guard with the advent of transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft and the impact they have had on curb space, traditional taxis, Read More »

IPMI Parking Data Analytics Snapshot (2017)

February 20, 2019

Download the full pdf here.

Planning for the Short Term

February 5, 2019

Industry experts talk about their strategies for sustainability and efficiency. Compiled by Rachel Yoka, CAPP, LEED AP BD+C 17-12 planning for the short term EVERY ASPECT of garage planning, design, construction, and operation has sustainability effects. The choices we make affect the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit—but Read More »

2018 Emerging Trends in Parking Survey Report

May 29, 2018

The 2018 Emerging Trends in Survey reveals that more than 60 percent of parking professionals surveyed now identify as “parking, transportation, and mobility professionals,” their jobs increasingly integral to design, management, and operations of parking that are part of the broader movement to ease traffic congestion and create more livable, Read More »

A Guide to Parking

April 14, 2018

IPI’s mission to advance the parking profession manifests in a number of ways – through top-notch education, certification and accreditation, and connecting our community through the conference and expo and now online through Forum.    Publications are another hallmark program of our organization; take a look through this magazine and the Read More »

Forum, IPI’s New Online Community

April 5, 2018

Forum is an online community that gives members a powerful new way to access and share parking, transportation, and mobility-industry information and on-the-job experiences. IPI members can log in and join vibrant discussions, gain others’ perspectives on questions and challenges, access a robust, online library of member knowledge and resources, Read More »

ACI/IPI Parking Survey Results

July 31, 2017

Prepared for Airports Council International-North America and International Parking Institute 2016 ACI/IPI Parking Survey Results

Ditching Drivers

January 1, 2017

Ditching Drivers By Jess McInerny, SE What parking professionals need to know now to prepare for a new world of driverless cars.  How will parking differ in the future? If you are investing right now, given 30 to 50 years of building use, what should you consider to improve the Read More »

A New System for Abu Dhabi

A New System for Abu Dhabi By Mohammed Al Muhairi and Tope Longe Managing the conflicting priorities of parking management. Parking pricing remains an important aspect of parking management. The need to set prices at a level that is effective for road space management and to redress the gap between parking Read More »

Profitable Pricing

Profitable Pricing By Saloni Firasta Vastani, PhD How new trends in pricing models can benefit the parking industry. Why is price so important? A study conducted by Hinterhuber in 2004 shows that a small increase in price can increase or decrease profitability by 20 to 50 percent. That seems like Read More »

ICE PARKING

October 26, 2016

By Ryan J. Givens, CAPP The unusual parking challenges faced at Penn State (and the creative solutions that worked) when a new ice arena was constructed on campus.  What university wouldn’t love a brand-new ice arena for its hockey team? While it was certainly exciting (for all the right reasons) Read More »

Parking Analytics: An Industry Snapshot (May 2016)

June 6, 2016

The International Parking Institute (IPI) has launched a new initiative focused on parking analytics and benchmarking. Designed to advance the parking profession by collecting, aggregating, and publishing data, this series offers Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the industry. Parking and transportation organizations are collecting and studying KPIs as a tool Read More »

City of Ann Arbor’s Library Lane Parking Garage: Beauty Meets Function

March 16, 2016

The Library Lane underground parking structure was strategically conceived to help revitalize downtown Ann Arbor’s midtown area, while encouraging new private investment and creating a stronger connection between Main Street and the University of Michigan campus. The city of Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority wanted 761 spaces to support new Read More »

Cornell University’s Forest Home Parking Garage Earns Green Garage Certification

Among the first parking structures to earn Green Garage Certification in the United States, the Forest Home Garage, constructed in 2009, is a perfect example of how sustainable innovation can be achieved through retrofitting an existing facility. Located at the north end of the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, NY, the garage plays an important Read More »

App Nation

February 13, 2016

By Mike Drow, CAPP, Peter Lange, and Blake Laufer, CAPP There’s an app for this and an app for that! Companies have Facebook pages so you can like them, and celebrities are Tweeting about any and all topics. And every person and business seems to have their own website. Trying Read More »

Our Role in Ending Distracted Driving

February 11, 2016

By Patrick Wells Earlier this year, I co-chaired a large regional golf outing in Central Ohio. Our beneficiary was Dom Tiberi, a local sports broadcaster who lost his 21-year-old daughter to a distracted driving incident. I listened to the pain behind the situation and the alarming statistics: 20 to 30 Read More »

On the Road; In the Lot

By Irma Henderson, CAPP By now, there are very few people who have not heard the terms “global warming” and “climate change.” While there are some who feel the increasing temperatures are a result of Earth’s natural cycles, others point to the increase of mankind’s use of fossil fuels. Regardless Read More »

A Five-Year Approach to Protecting Your Parking Investment

By John Dorsett, AICP You have a lot invested in your parking assets. Parking can be capital intensive and represents a significant investment for owners. In light of this, it’s remarkable how often parking owners take a set-it-and-forget-it approach to their parking assets. How can owners ensure their parking is Read More »

2015 Emerging Trends in Parking

According to the results of a new survey by The International Parking Institute (IPI), technology and the desire for more livable, walkable, sustainable communities continue to transform the ever-evolving parking industry. In addition to tracking trends, IPI’s 2015 Emerging Trends in Parking survey explores perceptions of parking, zoning issues, accessible Read More »

Parking a la Pavarotti

By Chip Chism Freshman orientation is an exciting time for any college community. The campus is full of both eager students and anxious parents trying to learn as much as possible about the school that will become a home away from home for the student. During the two days of Read More »

It’s Chip Time – Are You Ready

By Randy Vanderhoof Merchants of all kinds are now fully immersed in the process of migrating to Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) chip-based payments, and the U.S. parking industry plays a large role in that transition. In many places, customers are already used to paying for parking with credit and debit Read More »

Case Study Greening a Campus

By Mark Pace and J. Michael Whitcomb, PE Montgomery College in Maryland has incorporated ice thermal storage in its campus central plants as a summertime electrical demand management strategy since the early 1990s. Highly efficient rotary screw industrial chillers that use ammonia refrigerant (R717) operate at night when electrical demand Read More »

Embracing Change

By Joseph Balskus, PE In the June issue, I wrote a story on millennials in the parking industry—we need to embrace them as our customers and employees. As a follow-up discussion in this column, I am including their successors, the Z Generation or the New Century Generation, which is also Read More »

No Decal, No Hang Tag, No Problem

January 27, 2016

By Vicky Gagliano, LEED AP I remember those days during college when I waited in line for more than an hour at the parking office/trailer to pay for and pick up a parking decal. They gave me a plastic card with suction cups that I could use to display the Read More »

Not-So-Mysterious Millenials

By Joe Balskus, PE, PTOE It is often said that if you want to learn something, you must experience it. So I did something different while researching this article—something a millennial would do. I researched my topic totally online, including newspaper and magazine articles I would have searched for in Read More »

Placemaking and Parking

January 26, 2016

By Isaiah Mouw, CAPP and Brent Matthews, CAPP In the 1950s and ’60s the City of Chattanooga, Tenn., was one of the leading manufacturing cities in the U.S. With that success came the typical unintended consequences for a manufacturing city: pollution, smog, and ugly industrial plants. In 1969, network news Read More »

Parking Woes in Developing Countries

By Annaliza Vasallo Parking is hell. This is according to a Freakonomics podcast episode dealing with the hidden side of free parking. It made me think that if you think parking is hell in cities such as New York and San Francisco, imagine how the parking situation is in densely Read More »

What’s Going On with Electric Vehicles

By Michelle Wendler, AIA By 2025, it’s anticipated that there will be seven to 23 times the number of plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) in use around the world than are on the road today. As parking professionals, we should be prepared for the increased demand for charging stations. In the Read More »

Jurassic Parking

By Duke Hanson While a lot of people take parking for granted, the one thing I’ve learned in my 35-year career in the business is that you can never stop learning. And while registering for the 2015 IPI Conference & Expo (my 22nd annual), I was pulled back to the Read More »

Legal Updates

By Leonard T. Bier, JD, CAPP Since 2011, this column has addressed actual and hypothetical legal issues based on new state and federal laws, employment situations, parker conduct, and litigation that affects the operation of public and private sector parking operations. Here, we review some subjects we’ve covered and bring Read More »

Marketing Green Parking in the Social Media Age

By Megan Leinart, LEED AP BD+C The year 2015 will be a pivotal milestone in the history (and future) of green and sustainable parking. At the 2015 IPI Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, June 29–July 2, IPI and the Green Parking Council (GPC, an affiliate of IPI) will present Read More »

Rethinking Parking

By Danette Perry, CAPP, and Willa Ng, PE Berkeley, Calif.: the birthplace of the Free Speech movement, the first city to pass a tax on sugar, and the latest city to take on demand-based parking pricing? Though it sounds out of place at first, the City of Berkeley’s goBerkeley pilot Read More »

Big Progress in Big Data

By Michael Drow, CAPP; Peter Lange; and Blake Laufer, CAPP The parking industry has access to more data today than ever before, and the amount of data collected is growing quickly and exponentially. We generate incredible amounts of data from a variety of sources, including space availability tools, meter and Read More »

An Easy Approach to Innovation

By Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR Innovation has been a hot topic since Ben Franklin first flew a kite in a thunderstorm to search for electricity. The major differences between Ben Franklin’s time and today are about 200 years and the enormous amount of information people are continually bombarded with as Read More »

Greening the Air(ports)

By Michael Cramer I spent a recent drive to the airport thinking about how to write a column on airport operations with a sustainability angle. It’s a challenge because my 30-year career has been in class-A office tower, and while I’m sure airports have lots of sustainability programs, I don’t Read More »

Real Numbers

January 20, 2016

By Jay Primus The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) manages San Francisco’s parking, but for many years couldn’t answer a simple question: how many parking spaces are there in the city? We weren’t alone; to the best of our knowledge, no other major city can accurately answer this question. Read More »

Parking Management in Abu Dhabi

By Mohammed Al Muhairi and Tope Longe The regulation and civil enforcement of parking, though introduced decades ago in some countries, debuted in the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi (AD), in October 2009. The strategic management and implementation of change programs often pose challenges to managers, Read More »

Playing a Critical Role

Todd Litman is founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transport problems. There, he works to expand the range of effects and options considered in transportation decision-making, improve evaluation methods, and make specialized technical concepts accessible to Read More »

Garage Ventilation Options Improve

By Frank Nagle One of the major sources of energy consumption and operational cost for an enclosed garage is the mechanical ventilation system. Indeed, as much as two-thirds of the monthly/annual energy bill can be attributed to ventilation costs for garage operators running their properties’ garage fans in accordance with Read More »

Stakeholder Communication To Infinity and Beyond!

By Vanessa K. Solesbee, MA Any conversation about building an effective municipal operation is incomplete without a discussion about stakeholder communication. According to ­Merriam-Webster’s definition, communication is “the act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings Read More »

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Bully Pulpit

By Bill Smith, APR In my April column, I talked about the power of publicity. It doesn’t matter what type of parking organization you represent—an owner, operator, institution, supplier, or consultant—publicity can offer extraordinary reach. It can raise your credibility as an authority, make prospective clients and strategic partners aware Read More »

Placemaking Defined and Redefined

By J.C. Porter The Green Garage Certification Standard was recently released, and with it, parking professionals were introduced to a new language that may be unfamiliar to some. If you have not yet had a chance to purchase the new certification standard, I highly recommend you do so through the Read More »

The Hottest New Couple In Town

By Vanessa Weston, CAPP Automobiles have been around for centuries, and from their initial introduction until today, have needed their own storage: parking. Smartphones have been around since 1993 but did not become a part of consumers’ everyday lifestyle until the last decade or so. Who would ever think of Read More »

Planning a Rehabilitation Project

By John M. Porter, PE You took the first step to evaluate the condition of your parking garage by hiring a specialist to perform an assessment. The condition assessment report identified the extent of deterioration and distress, rehabilitation alternatives, and estimated construction costs. Although you’ve been budgeting for this rehabilitation Read More »

Very Important Parking

By Rudor “Dori” Teich In 1926, 18 years after Henry Ford invented the Model T, American merchants said downtown traffic was their most serious problem; poor parking habits and hazardous conditions were the most predominant causes of their challenges. Enter the new millennium. Tens of millions of vehicles travel our Read More »

Be a DimWatt!

By Jeff Pinyot You can probably imagine how many times a garage lighting specialist is asked about motion sensors in parking structures. They come up at every trade show and meeting we attend. Some people are passionate about wanting them, and others don’t understand the need. Because it is, at Read More »

The Future of Parking Policies

By Sjoerd Stienstra For a long time, parking has been seen as a relatively independent subject that’s mainly connected to traffic and transport policies. Parking policy is largely developed against the background of expectations regarding the future developments of car use and ownership. Over time, the focus started shifting toward Read More »

Green Alphabet Soup

By Irma Henderson TDM, SOV, HOV, AVR, TOD, ATP. What does this all mean, and why is it so important to parking professionals? According to Wikipedia, transportation demand management (TDM) is, “the application of strategies and policies to reduce travel demand or to redistribute this demand in space or in Read More »

Joining the Electrical Vehicle Age

By Mark Pace Electric vehicles (EV) are currently the topic of a great deal of conversation and legislation in some areas despite the fact that fewer than 1 percent of all new vehicles are plug-in capable. Enforcement of EV charging-only spaces is a challenge for some jurisdictions. Case in point: Read More »

Lean Smart Parking

By Christopher Dance On-street parking sensors are working in cities from Los Angeles to Moscow. The benefits of data from such sensors are undeniable. As guidance apps move from cellphones to in-car systems, drivers will rely on sensor data to quickly find nearby spaces. Comparisons of sensor data with meter Read More »

Escaping the 60’s

By Bill Smith When the parking industry was still in its infancy in the 1950s and ’60s, just a handful of companies worked to manage demand for spaces, and business in general tended to be done through relationships with a handshake. Little thought was given to marketing beyond taking prospects Read More »

Beyond the App for That

By Amie Devero There’s an app for that! It’s become the go-to answer for many modern municipal challenges. But often, that quick solution fails to address the real issue, and sometimes adds new problems for customers and municipal professionals alike. In cities around the world, technology is being used to Read More »

Smart Moves

By Eric Woods The introduction of smart parking technology marks the biggest transformation in parking since the introduction of the first parking meters in Oklahoma City in 1935. Parking is being transformed by new technologies that are affecting operational efficiency and customer expectations. Even broader changes are being driven by Read More »

The Metrics that Matter

By Pete Messman It is increasingly difficult to argue against having energy-efficient lighting installed in a parking garage. Even garages that were built recently with traditional metal halide or high-pressure sodium fixtures should be considering a retrofit as the benefits affect everyone—customers, managers, and owners. But there is a huge Read More »

Navigating the Maze

January 19, 2016

By Thomas Szubka, CAPP I recently had the opportunity to share a presentation about the City of Tampa, Fla., Parking Division’s experiences implementing new technology during the past few years. Later, in a roundtable-type discussion, I heard a smaller municipality’s parking professional mention that it was the role of larger Read More »

Lessons on Leading from Nature

By Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR Every year sees more and more books published on the subject of leadership. From the playing fields to the battlefields to daily life in homes around the world, the ability to lead is discussed everywhere. While this is not surprising to anyone, I would like Read More »

Hiring an Expert

By Patrick Wells While the argument is out there for construction companies to be more diverse and have more variety in their pursuits, I have found that there is tremendous value in searching out and hiring a true specialist for new projects. Coming from the construction industry and having experience Read More »

Beyond Just Parking

By Gloria Gallo, CAPP, and Patricia Rumi, CAPP For many years, the four-square-mile Borough of Fort Lee, N.J., has made clever use of its parking authority. To keep taxes down and offer residents increased services, the municipal government has called upon the department from time to time to assume responsibility Read More »

NEW Technology Will Drive Airport Parking In 2014

By Dan Kupferman, CAPP Flying can be stressful. It’s really not the flying that creates tension, but getting to the gate on time that stresses us out. Driving to the airport, finding a parking space, getting through security—if you have an early morning flight, you may be tempted to leave Read More »

Along the Curb

By Clement Gibson, CAPP, and Doreen Szymanski The city of Charlotte is reorganizing curb lane use in its uptown area and erecting newly- designed signage that communicates the changes to motorists. Through an integrated approach for all of Charlotte’s uptown streets, curb lane users will discover a more uniform use Read More »

Let the Sun Shine

By Jon Sarno Parking lots and garage rooftops offer expansive, un-shaded, and unobstructed spaces that are ideal for housing commercial-scale solar energy solutions. Solar photovoltaics (PV) have long proven a smart choice for parking facilities for a variety of reasons. With the growing trend of installing plug-in electric vehicle charging Read More »

Tangible Personal Property Regulations and Parking Facilities

By Dominick Brook A parking facility can contain all sorts of equipment beyond the actual structure, including meters, signs, attendant booths, entrance and exit gates, lighting, and parking ticket scanners. All these assets and the structure itself are subject to tangible property regulations that provide guidance on whether, how, and Read More »

Open Possibilities

By John Barnett Architect John Capdevielle, II, Baton Rouge, La., says the tendency for those in his profession to get set in their ways is natural. Despite being in his mid-60s, he is resisting that tendency because new technology and new construction materials can bring improved performance and reduced costs Read More »

Parking Garages and Green Walls

By Isaiah Mouw, CAPP, LEED Green Associate We have all seen our share of bland, unappealing parking garages. Unfortunately, many of us have had a hand in designing them as well. One may point out the obvious: that the primary goal of the parking garage is to simply park cars. Read More »

How Much does a Structure Cost

By H. Dean Penny, PE How much barbecue do you need to feed a group of 30? How many cookies will this recipe make? How many drinks are in a pitcher? Have you ever tried to accurately answer a question that had more than one possible answer? In each of Read More »

A Prolific Partnership

By Gina Fiandaca Public private partnerships (P3) between major local governments and private companies are critical to the successful development and execution of sophisticated, high-volume programs such as the processing and collection of parking tickets. These partnerships allow governments to allocate resources to establishing policies, building core competencies, providing oversight, Read More »

Upping the Ante on Parking Planning and Design

By Chris Gray, PE, and Megan Leinart, LEED AP BD+C Atlantic City is well known for its exciting atmosphere, vibrant nightlife, and boardwalk that’s alive with casinos, shops, and restaurants. People from all over the world visit the city to gamble, play on the beach, and experience an affordable and Read More »

Unlocking the Grid

By Bill Smith The eyes of the world will be on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the next few years, as the city gears up to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. These events bring prestige, lots of attention, and billions of Read More »

Cracking Down

January 18, 2016

By Kim Fernandez Monitor news about parking and you’ll get an alert just about every day that has to do with the abuse of spaces reserved for those using disabled driver permits. It’s no wonder: experts say that the dawn of affordable professional-quality home printing and scanning mean it’s easier Read More »

The Greenest Parking Space

By Matthew Inman Parking is getting greener. There is a wide range of options to choose from to help mitigate a parking facility’s effect on the environment, from energy-efficient lighting systems and solar panels to green roofs and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. One thing hasn’t changed: parking facilities exist Read More »

Evaluating Parking Programs

By Jack Santa I am sometimes assigned to evaluate the parking and/or transportation operation of an organization using my experience as both a consultant and as a commercial parking and transportation operator. The evaluation is usually commissioned to recommend methods to enhance service delivery and/or reduce costs. While parking operations Read More »

Dialing and Thriving

By Soumya S. Dey, PE, PMP, and Angelo Rao, PE Washington, D.C., has approximately 18,000 metered on-street parking spaces. The parking program has seen significant changes during the past few years, including two rate increases, lifting a Saturday moratorium on parking meter fees, and extending the hours during which meters Read More »

Behind The Curtain

By Jeff Pinyot Substitute LED for Oz in a memorable movie quote and you get this bold statement: “Do not arouse the wrath of the great and powerful LED. I said come back tomorrow.” This begs the question: is light emitting diode (LED) technology ready today, or do we, as Read More »

Defending the Enforcement Officer

By Colleen M. Niese But I was only going to be gone five minutes.” “Your meter doesn’t accept cash.” “I don’t have to pay for parking—I’m on staff.” Parking enforcement officers can be subjected to listening and resolving the proverbial “dog ate my homework” excuses from customers trying to extract Read More »

It’s Academic

By Bryan Townley During the most recent semester at The Ohio State University, I enrolled in my first city planning studio—one of the capstone classes of the undergraduate planning program. Because these studio classes are arranged in a way that allows students to work directly with municipalities, they function as Read More »

Park Your Park Here

By Kim Fernandez Midway through an otherwise ordinary day three years ago, Jeff Petry picked up the phone to hear the voice of a seriously stymied parking enforcement officer. “He said we had people sitting in parking spaces outside Starbucks and other downtown businesses,” says Petry, parking manager at the Read More »

Campus Lighting Swap Saves

By June Broughton, CAPP Two years ago, Transportation Services at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, embarked on a massive lighting project that involved replacing all fixtures in five parking garages, including those in stairwells, elevator lobbies, and roofs. Transportation Services engaged a consultant to conduct a thorough lighting study Read More »

Off the Grid

By Bill Schoenfisch When Long Beach City College (LBCC) first opened in 1927 with an enrollment of 503 students, its current enrollment of more than 27,000 probably seemed like an impossible dream. The college later split into three separate campuses by function, and renamed its original Long Beach location the Read More »

Maintenence Matters

By Gregory J. Neiderer, PE Some parking facility owners and operators believe that as long as their structures continue to serve the public, few maintenance-related tasks need to be performed. Nothing could be further from the truth—facility maintenance is downright essential. One of the most important things an owner or Read More »

Aiding & Abetting in a Good Way

By Eric Crouch and Stacy Moncibaiz Monitoring a campus that houses a population of 35,000 and is the size of a small town often takes on a life of its own. Among the usual student, faculty, and staff activities, stolen vehicles and criminal persons of interest can pass through campus Read More »

The Basics of Intellectual Property

By Ralph G. Fischer, Esq. and Jason P. Wrona, Esq. Technological innovation is driving the evolution of the parking industry. The demand for enhanced revenues, sustainable technology, real-time statistics, and smart products pressure manufacturers and developers to continually innovate or be left behind. Examples of these innovations abound: manual meter Read More »

One Year Later NYC’s EStar Test

January 16, 2016

By Guillermo Leiva Last year, I wrote about the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Bureau of Parking’s audition of all-electric eStar vans in our meter collection fleet (see the July 2012 issue of The Parking Professional). We began our tests as optimists, hoping this new, sustainable technology Read More »

What’s the End

By David Feehan A remarkable story continues to unfold in the United States: the rebuilding and reinvention of our core cities. One of the fundamental lessons we’ve learned is that there aren’t really any silver bullets. After many years of building and implementing the projects and programs du jour, we’ve Read More »

Maximizing Change Minimizing Pain

By Garrett Coleman Does the idea of upgrading your parking facility’s payment systems raise the hair on the back of your neck from the thought of lanes being shut down, traffic jams, issuing new monthly access credentials, and facing a complete database transfer? Upgrading a garage parking system does not Read More »

Find It Fix It Then Raise the Bar

By Wanda Brown Is your parking operation riddled with staff excuses? Can’t get your employees to produce excellence? Feeling frustrated and sometimes defeated? Every parking manager has had to deal with less-than-favorable performance from frontline and administrative staff. Whether poor performance is due to motivational or training issues, it is Read More »

Tourist Transitions

January 15, 2016

By Brian Andersen, CAPP, MBA Over the years, I have witnessed the parking metamorphosis of Park City, Utah, which is a resort town. The city’s skiing is legendary and attracts many to this beautiful region, but its proximity to an urban area and major airport hub has generated some parking Read More »

Mensa Meters

By Jon Martens and Steffen Turoff, AICP Shoppers, business owners, visitors, and even residents in cities and towns across the U.S., all face the same persistent, driving-related problem: finding an available parking spot. Recent surveys from around the country have shown that regardless of a municipality’s location, some of the Read More »

To Market To Market

By Michael Klein, CAPP Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to use market forces to allocate on-street parking without incurring the wrath and ire of the public? Would you like to improve customer service, support efficient development, and improve your financial performance? One paradigm shift will allow you to Read More »

Managing Moped Parking

By Patrick J. Kass, CAPP The University of Wisconsin-Madison is located in downtown Madison and is home to 75,000 employees, students, and visitors on a daily basis. The campus has 13,000 parking spaces to meet its daily need. To support the access needs of the campus, a number of alternative Read More »

From Gates to Grapes

By Kim Fernandez Joe Kovach looked out over a mostly-unused parking lot behind a closed dormitory at The Ohio State University in the fall of 2010 and pondered what potential might lie on the asphalt. “I started wondering if we could make that productive,” says the associate professor of entomology Read More »

Garages are for Parking

By William F. Kavanagh, AIA, NCARB There has been a lot of news recently about a variety of people- gathering events being hosted in parking garages (see p. 28 for one). Some of them include the following: Sports event tailgating. Fireworks viewing. Parade watching. Dances or raves. Grand opening/ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Read More »

Capturing America’s Most Wanted

Author, victim advocate, and crime-fighter John Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted,” shares his thoughts on the parking industry and catching the bad guys. Watch true-crime television for any amount of time, and it won’t be long before John Walsh appears on the screen. He left his career in the Read More »

Forward Thinking

By Chris Gray, PE Leaders in the county of Berks, Pa., understands the importance of long-term maintenance and doing things right the first time. In the spring of 2011, the county set out to undertake a large restoration project for its main office/courthouse building. The Berks County Services Center, a Read More »

The Power of Observation

By David Cummins and Ellen Isaacs Breakthroughs are often born in the lab or boardroom, but they live or die in the real world where people determine their value through real use. Xerox has employed ethnography for many years to gain a better understanding of human behavior in naturalistic settings, Read More »

The Consultative Approach

January 14, 2016

By L. Dennis Burns, CAPP Have you ever read a book and said to yourself, “Man, I should have written this!” That was my first reaction to The Consultative Approach, by Virginia LaGrossa and Suzanne Saxe. My second thought was, “Man, I wish had read this book 20 years ago.” Read More »

The Parking Manager is In

By Jeff Petry Remember Lucy’s stand from the cartoon, “Peanuts?” Instead of dispensing a sweet drink, she offered customers the chance to unload and try to figure things out. We recently brought her concept to life in Eugene, Ore., had a great time doing it, and connected with our community Read More »

There’s an App for That

January 12, 2016

By Colleen M. Niese The business case has been presented, the green light given to fund a new technology-based solution—a pay-and-display system, an automated monthly parker program, or perhaps an upgrade to a corporate support function—and you’re in the driver’s seat to source the right vendor to provide the deliverable. Read More »

Calming the Storm

By Seth Brown Parking professionals view a highly-used and busy parking lot as an amenity that generates income and adds value to the property being served. Stormwater professionals, in contrast, look at the same parking lot or facility and see a source of increased water pollution, high rates of stormwater Read More »

Parking Pricing & TDM

By Kurt Matthews Parking and traffic demand management (TDM): are they friend, foe, or partners? In Boulder, Colo., we look at these two concepts as elements of a larger notion that we call access management. Properly managed parking supports TDM by helping control and, at the same time, ensure access Read More »

Shining Beacon

By Lissa Myers Even from a distance, the new structure built on the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) campus in Golden, Colo., doesn’t look like an ordinary parking garage. It doesn’t act like one either. NREL’s parking garage proves that large garages can be designed and Read More »

Greening Your Garage

By Dennis A. Safford Who knew doing the right thing for the planet could make you more money? Implementing sustainable initiatives in parking facilities that benefit the environment and society does not mean you need to sacrifice dollars. At face value, it would seem that the urban parking garage is Read More »

The Forest for the Trees

By Federico Lopez Many industries—perhaps most—directly and indirectly emit greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and are in part responsible for climate change; the parking sector is not an exception. Just like all other businesses, Bogota, Colombia’s City Parking consumes energy, fossil fuels, and water, and generates waste in its daily Read More »

The Driver Privacy Protection Act

By Leonard T. Bier JD, CAPP The federal Driver Privacy Protection Act [DPPA] was signed into law in 1994. It was passed in part in reaction to the death of actress Rebecca Shaeffer by an obsessed fan who obtained her home address from state department of motor vehicle (DMV) records Read More »

A Sustainable Parking Frontier

By Jeff Petry Leading practitioners of sustainable parking practices are incorporating electric vehicle charging stations, solar panels, bike corrals, shared car programs, LED lighting, green operational policies, and renewable energy sources. In many ways, these characteristics are off-the-shelf purchases that can be made by any parking operation or municipality. Further, Read More »

Bench Warrant

By Haskell Nussbaum Having written a book about how to beat parking tickets and sat as a judge who decided such cases, it’s somewhat amusing to be approached by “the enemy” to pen an article about how to make parking tickets stick. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Read More »

Set Adrift

By Jasper Mulder With real estate at a premium, especially in crowded city centers, developing new parking lots and garages is becoming increasingly difficult. Obstacles to potential locations include financial viability, planning procedures, environmental considerations, and infrastructural implications. New solutions have to be found, and in the Netherlands, floating and Read More »

Diamond Outside the Ballpark

By Art Noriega As is true near many major league baseball stadiums, community concerns about parking convenience and availability at the new Miami Marlins Park ran high before opening day this spring. Skepticism subsided quickly once the season was underway, thanks to advance research and planning by the Marlins organization Read More »

Fostering an Engaged Community

By Johnna Frosini, CAPP Research shows that as public and private educational institutions compete for quality students, engagement has become a crucial part of the formula for producing successful students. If institutions can provide an enriched learning and teaching environment, it follows that improved graduation and retention rates will be Read More »

On Parking Discussions and Innovation

January 8, 2016

By Joseph P. Sciulli Highway Administration’s white paper, Contemporary Approaches to Parking Pricing: A Primer (see p. 46 in that issue), which was presented at the 2012 IPI Conference & Expo. The paper’s stated purpose is to “encourage discussion and innovation within the parking field.” We welcome this input, as Read More »

What She Said

By Teresa Davis, Ph.D., CAPP Nine years into my position as the director of transportation services at Penn State, I began work on my dissertation. My professor advised, “Write what you know,” so I opted to study women managers in university transportation departments. I came across information provided by the Read More »

On Leadership

By Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR You might have read the headline above and wondered, “What is Julius up to now?” After all, leadership is debated repeatedly from the halls of academia to boardrooms near and far. With this as a backdrop, why am I even asking a question about leadership? Read More »

Planning to Ride Smart

January 4, 2016

By Mike Harris Over the last few years, Mississippi State University has experienced historic growth. This increase is a national trend, from the numbers I have seen in academia. Factors behind our institution’s recent growth include the economic climate that has slowed job creation and the realization that the world Read More »

The Modern Toolbox

By Brett Wood and Adria Koller, AICP Remember middle school? Remember being concerned about everyone talking behind your back? Wasn’t much fun, was it? Do you know what your stakeholders are saying about you now? Because more than your image is on the line; the success of your parking program Read More »

Getting Your P’s in a Row

By Michael D. Martindill Man, it’s tough out there. Cities, states, counties, and academic institutions continue to experience shrinking budgets and reduced revenues. The public financing markets are still erratic and unpredictable. Taxable and non-taxable debt continues to be about the same, which has not happened in decades. All the Read More »

Changing Debit Card Rules

By Michael Mintz New rules went into effect on October 1, 2011 that lower the debit card interchange fees Visa™, MasterCard®, and Discover® charge as the pure cost to process a debit card. These changes resulted from the Durbin Amendment that was passed as part of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Read More »

Getting On The Bus

By Josh Cohen No one needs to be reminded that parking decks are expensive to build and maintain. In 2010, the University of Florida built a $20 million LEED-certified, 927-space parking deck. Likewise, no one needs to be told that campus transit is expensive. North Carolina State University spends almost $5 Read More »

Backing In

By John A. Nawn, P.E., PTOE In many communities’ central business districts (CBDs), a lack of available parking close to retail and commercial establishments is seen as a deterrent to continued retail development and reinvestment. One solution is back-in angle parking. The biomechanics necessary to position a car into a Read More »

Slaying the Mythical Dragon

By Roy Diez A sustainable parking garage? LEED certified? Conventional wisdom said it couldn’t be done, but conventional wisdom was wrong. Committed to completing construction projects in a manner that is as environmentally sustainable as possible, Duke University in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., made a conscious decision to attempt LEED certification for Read More »

Explosion Erosion

By I. Paul Lew, P.E., CAPP It’s been nearly two years since a failed attempt to detonate a vehicle bomb in New York’s Times Square. As was demonstrated in this event and more so in the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing and bomb in the garage of the World Read More »

Sustainability and Valet Operations

January 3, 2016

By Isaiah Mouw, CAPP, LEED Green Associate Modern valet parking in the United States began as early as the 1930s. As parking demand in urban areas increased, available parking adjacent to a driver’s specific destination grew smaller and smaller. Drivers became willing to pay to have someone else park and Read More »

New Research Reveals Local Governments Need to Get Up to Speed on Parking

January 2, 2016

New Research Reveals Local Government Officials Need to Get Up to Speed on Parking Findings Show Disconnect between City Decision-makers’ Awareness of Parking Technologies that Can Remedy Traffic Congestion and Improve City Life DALLAS, Texas – June 2, 2013 – A new survey of city and county officials shows that Read More »

Press Release, 5/7/14, Groundbreaking New Book on Sustainable Parking

Groundbreaking New Book on Sustainable Parking Design and Management Advances “Green” Parking Solutions Sustainable Parking Design and Management: A Practitioner’s Handbook provides theory, application, and case studies from parking architects, planners, and LEED-certified parking experts (Alexandria, VA – May 6) A comprehensive new book, now available for pre-order from the Read More »

Press Release, 9/17/13, First-ever Global Parking Industry Survey

First-ever Global Parking Industry Survey Reveals Technology is Transforming How We Park around the World Innovative technology globally viewed as a top trend, and while decision-makers’ attitudes toward parking are improving, more collaboration is needed Do parking challenges and solutions differ significantly around the globe? Are Japan’s parking priorities the Read More »

2013-05-20 Survey of Parking Pros: Technology is Transforming the Parking Industry

Survey of Parking Pros: Technology is Transforming the Parking Industry San Francisco, Seattle, and New York lead in parking innovation; LA, DC, Portland,Ore., Miami, Houston, Boston, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Tampa also are named as cities that are re-thinking parking with technology and new approaches (FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA – May 20, Read More »

2012-10-29 Smart Parking, Smart Cities

Smart Parking, Smart Cities: World’s Leading Parking Experts to Share Insights with Latin American Architects, Urban Planners, Developers, Government Officials, and Business Leaders Latin Parking Conference & Expo to Convene Dec. 9-12, in San Juan, Puerto Rico An increasing number of government leaders, architects, urban planners, transportation officials, and economic Read More »

2012-06-11 New Survey of Emerging Trends in Parking

New Survey of Emerging Trends in Parking Industry-transforming innovations are changing the way we park (PHOENIX, Ariz. – June 11, 2012) According to the results of an industry-wide survey conducted by the International Parking Institute, increased demand for technology-related innovations account for half of the top ten trends in today’s Read More »

2012-05-08 New Report Highlights Importance of Parking to Airport Operations

New Report Highlights Importance of Parking to Airport Operations Airport parking facilities contribute between $2 and $118 million in gross revenues annually to an airport, with a typical large hub airport generating $55 million per year FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA (May 8, 2012) – Parking is a key component of business operations Read More »

Why Parking Matters – 2015 White Paper

December 15, 2015

Explains why parking and the expertise of parking professionals are integral to the future of cities. Why Parking Matters – 2015 White Paper

Tale of Two Cities Smart Parking Infographic

Illustrated comparison of a city with and without smart parking solutions. Tale of Two Cities Smart Parking Infographic

GPALS Survey

A report on surveys conducted by the Global Parking Association Leaders (GPALs) at the 2013 GPALs Summit in Dublin, Ireland. GPALS Survey

EMV and Parking White Paper

Developed by IPI and the Smart Card Alliance, the publication offers parking-related guidance and recommendations on managing EMV chip-based payments. EMV and Parking White Paper

Emerging Trends 2015

The annual survey explores where the parking industry stands on a variety of important issues. Emerging Trends 2015

Emerging Trends 2013

The annual survey explores where the parking industry stands on a variety of important issues. Emerging Trends 2013

Emerging Trends 2012

The annual survey explores where the parking industry stands on a variety of important issues. Emerging Trends 2012

Emerging Trends 2011

The annual survey explores where the parking industry stands on a variety of important issues. Emerging Trends 2011