Shopping Mall Parking Lot Productivity How to Increase it by 180%?

SHOPPING MALL PARKING LOT PRODUCTIVITY

HOW TO INCREASE IT BY 180%?

Kevin Warwood

General Manager PARKING NATION CONSULTING LIMITED

Parking is like washing cars. Anyone can wash their car, but it’s not until you do it commercially and wash 16 cars in a day that you realise, you are only an amateur! Parking is exactly the same.

As you spend your time washing the cars, you start to learn how to become more efficient, spending less time and energy washing each car, getting better and better each time. Malcolm Gladwell said in his book Outliers that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is needed to become world-class. I’m not sure anyone has a desire to be world-class at car parking, but the exaggeration makes the point here.

Over 20 years of parking, you come across some great ideas on how to make a car park productive. You understand how to get more cars in the same small space, deliver a pleasant experience for those who travel through it – whether the car park sits in front of an airport, hospital or shopping mall.

It makes sense that the car park serving your shopping mall must be as efficient as possible to facilitate as many cars as possible, for as long as possible each day. High productivity car parks are a priority and key to profitability.

Parking comes in 3 forms to drive the productive behaviours we want;

1.

Charged Parking – by applying a price we can flatten the demand curve and get more cars in, longer in a day – it is the cleanest way to manage a car park. Today, we even know how to move exactly the right number of cars with exactly the right price, using elasticity calculations. Value Parking – this is FREE parking. We value each car park differently by ensuring the most valuable car park has the most turns. We restrict or promote the time a car can spend in each space. We can calculate the exact times that cars can stay in each space to create high productivity parking lots. Unorganized Parking – any other method. Good luck.

2.

3.

Here’s an example for you. Recently, I undertook some work at a new shopping mall in Riyadh, KSA. The parking was very busy in the new mall. Cars were disorganised and parked anywhere, even in the valet lane. After reorganising the layout of the parking, suggesting the correct technology to use and designing in various time-limits by the hour and by day, the car park was able to bear 180% higher volumes. That translated into 180% higher foot traffic out of that one car park.

You can unlock the productivity of your car parks by micromanaging them more cleverly. In parking, you may be an amateur, but you can always benefit from the 10,000 hours of experience.