Data is the Key to Modernizing Curbside Management

By Adam Wenneman

The curbside is one of the most poorly understood parts of the municipal right-of-way. On the one hand, it’s a huge piece of municipal infrastructure that is essential to the urban transportation landscape, supporting billion-dollar industries like goods movement and ride sharing. On the other, it is a scarce – and diminishing – resource whose management principles remain rooted in 20th century technologies.

In a time where curbside uses are growing to include expanded patios, dedicated courier loading zones, and other temporary uses, cities need to leverage innovations in collecting, managing, and sharing curb data to improve the efficiency of operations at the curbside.

The Curbside is a Critical Municipal Asset

The curbside is a major piece of infrastructure for every municipality. Across Canada, on-street parking represents upwards of 20% of a city’s total parking supply1. In some cities, like Saskatoon or St John’s, on-street parking constitutes almost all of the downtown parking supply. In downtown Hamilton alone, there is room for over 1,100 parking spaces at the curbside – that’s an area equivalent to the size of ten NHL-sized ice rinks. Efficient operation of this space is an important factor in a city’s ability to support the future of urban mobility.

Despite its considerable supply, the curbside remains a limited and scarce resource at a time where demand for curb space is at an all-time high. The curbside is a limited resource in that its supply cannot grow substantially in urban areas with well-defined built environments and road networks. At the same time, cities are beginning to repurpose the curbside and even entire roadways for alternative uses like active transportation, outdoor dining, and shared community space2. Make no mistake – increasing the amount of green, livable space in a city can have major…

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War Veterans – Free parking – Municipalities

We have received an inquiry about providing free parking to war veterans in our downtown. Does your municipality provide free parking to War Veterans and if so, what are the particulars of the program? If you have reviewed this program and decided against it, please provide any reasons why the program was not accepted and/or discontinued.

Thanks

Paul McCormick,

paul.mccormick@kitchener.ca

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CVPS Solutions Introduces MyTicket

January 25, 2021 – We live in an increasingly contactless world. To keep up with the recommendations from global health experts and mitigate potential exposure situations in your operation, CVPS continues to innovate by creating touchless solutions to meet the needs of every operation. CVPS is proud to present, MyTicket: featuring Scan-4-Ticket and Text-4-Ticket functionality. 

MyTicket reduces touchpoints in your operation by empowering customers to operate your Parking Access and Revenue Control Systems (PARCS) using their personal mobile device. “Customers want the convenience and safety of using their phone, but they don’t want another app. That’s part of the beauty of MyTicket,” says John Daniels Vice President & General Manager with CVPS. He continues, “MyTicket gives users all the functionality they want from an app, like Electronic Tickets and Mobile Pay-by-Phone, without the hassle of a download.” MyTicket works seamlessly with all CVPS access control devices for controlled operation. No gate? No problem. MyTicket can easily be configured for gateless environments. 

In controlled operations, MyTicket signs are posted on each entry device. Scan-4-Ticket functionality utilizes lot-specific QR codes while Text-4-Ticket uses a designated local phone number and lot-specific codes. After user-interface, CVPS guides the parking patron through a quick parking survey and then automatically generates their Electronic Ticket to vend gates during ingress and egress from your facility. The entire process is contactless when deployed in conjunction with CVPS Mobile Pay-by-Phone functionality. 

For absolute flexibility, MyTicket is just the ticket for gateless operations. Simply post MyTicket signs at all entrances and in strategic locations throughout your facility. As an added layer of convenience for your parking clientele, MyTicket information can also be shared on your website. Guests use the camera in their mobile device to scan the lot-specific QR code or to text the…

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Preparing for the Re-opening of Business

Industry members are identifying numerous ways to help address the public health crisis and economic impact while managing their operations under adverse conditions. 
Discussion Topics:
  • Facility Safety & Sanitation Plans
  • Technology & Operations Challenges
  • HR Policy Updates:  Staff Vaccines; Work from Home; Accommodation
  • Can we Return to Business as Usual in 2021?

Bring your questions and insights to the table to share with others.  
Session is complimentary and open to members and non-members.

Tuesday, January 26, 2021, 1 pm EST

Register Here

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Calgary Parking Authority Featured on CNN

Our very own Reachel Knight is featured on CNN’s Tomorrow Transformed feature on 9AP & Platform Innovation Centre (Dec. 12, 2020)  View Video Here

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Hamilton’s Transition to Digital: Building a Mobility Strategy for the Future

By Alicia Smart, Passport

Over the past decade, the City of Hamilton has experienced a tremendous influx in urban growth and development. The City, known for its tourism and medical research, is also the fastest growing mid-sized city in Canada for tech and healthcare. This rapid growth and urbanization have caused the City to reimagine its parking operations.

Many areas in Hamilton are undergoing secondary plans to ensure that there are land use, transportation, and infrastructure plans in place to meet the needs of the growing communities. Hamilton’s parking operation handles all on-street parking related matters, inclusive to parking bylaws. In addition to the day-to-day parking that occurs on Hamilton’s 2,700 on-street and 5,000 off-street paid parking spaces, construction, special events and filming heavily utilize parking. Many of the core parking surface lots have made way for urban growth and Hamilton expects this to be a growing trend over the next 10 years.

Up until 2019, a large portion of the City’s parking operation was simply collecting and reconciling cash and coin. Enforcement operations caused a number of issues at the time, including hardware malfunctions and coin jams. Additionally, data collection was almost non-existent due to the coin and cash dependence. “When I joined the parking system in 2017, what I saw was a large group of very hardworking people who were working too hard at the expense of manual processes,” says Amanda McIlveen, City of Hamilton parking operations and initiatives manager. “From past experience, I knew that Hamilton was in need of a massive digital transformation.”

Amanda and her team quickly realized that in a data-heavy industry, it is difficult to run a parking operation efficiently using antiquated and manual processes. Leveraging data allows cities to manage and allocate staff properly, manage parking demand, create efficiency in…

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Dynamic Pricing: A success story in three stages

By Baptiste Corno

Dynamic pricing is clearly the solution nowadays to boost your parking facilities revenue, enhance customer experiences, increase the attractiveness of a city center, lead urban flow and provide drivers with discounted parking spaces. Drivers, parking managers or city managers, this article is made for you.

Our world and our society, are in constant evolution. We will witness considerable changes in the next decade. Some major events have already changed our world this year and we are likely to see more. This decade is the start of a new cycle. We must individually and collectively reconsider our habits and consumptions modes to sustain our future.

Mobility must be one of the top priorities to reconsider. It must evolve toward more autonomy, shared transportation, environmentally friendly and connected usage. Car Parks must also evolve in the same direction and all of us must adopt a very positive approach if we want to succeed.

The development of dynamic pricing solutions in parking facilities is one of the first areas to change because it will help everybody in the community, especially consumers and their budgets. By helping a wider range of the population, Dynamic Pricing can be used as a public policy that benefits a large number of people while providing optimization for private entities. Dynamic Pricing can be the solution of numerous challenges. Xavier Zakoian, CEO & Founder of Kowee, leader in Dynamic Pricing solution for the parking industry stated that: “The objective to achieve is not necessarily revenue optimization. It can be, but it can be customer satisfaction, customer targeting, occupancy maximization and so on”. Dynamic Pricing techniques are an answer to the actual issue regarding urban traffic flow in Smart Cities.

Infotraffic presented an example of Dynamic Pricing strategy at the Virtual Canadian Parking Association Conference…

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Life Is About Choices, Parking Should Be Too

By Joni Eros

We take choice for granted in our daily lives. We choose what we’ll eat or drink; what we listen to on the radio or watch on tv; what products we use each day; and who to befriend in our lives. There’s a cliché about life being about choices, but it’s true. We make so many every day that we begin to take them for granted.

Historically, choice has not been a significant element of parking. Sure, drivers get to choose where to park, but that is pretty much where their freedom of choice ends. Once they choose a parkade or on-street space, the parker has to use the meter the city has installed, or the PARCS or pay-on-foot equipment the garage offers.

Why does choice matter when it comes to parking payment? Simply put, we don’t all like the same things. Some people are Coke, some are Pepsi; some are Apple, and some are Windows; some like Tim Hortons and some—ok, everyone likes Tim Hortons.

The chasm is particularly wide when it comes to technology. The most obvious 21st Century example can be found in smartphones. Some of us are iPhone users and some are Android. Different people experience technology differently, and that affects their preferences. While one phone may seem alien in its layout and functionality, the other seems entirely intuitive.

The good news is that the evolution of the parking landscape is drastically changing, providing drivers more choice than ever. This is particularly true when it comes to mobile payment. As mobile payment becomes increasingly popular, municipalities, institutions of higher education, and private parking operators are adopting the multi-vendor model on a global scale. And this increased choice benefits both drivers and parking organizations.

Choice Benefits Everyone

In today’s technology-dominated parking world,…

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