/ PARKING & MOBILITY SPOTLIGHT/APO
Lancaster Parking Authority’s Road to APO
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By Larry J. Cohen, CAPP
HEN I TOOK OVER LEADERSHIP OF OUR MUNICIPAL PARKING AUTHORITY, it looked
and operated like the Wild West. I’ll leave it to my fellow parking professionals to read between the lines. I could never have imagined that fewer than 10 years later, we would achieve the top organizational credential in our industry. Earning the Accredited Parking Organization (APO) distinction is the apex of a climb for the Lancaster Parking Authority (LPA) in Lancaster, Pa. It’s the culmination of years of hard work and getting the right people in the right positions that paid off.
A Checklist The APO is essentially a rigorous checklist. It evaluates every aspect of your parking organization from A to Z, including but not limited to human resources, finances, customer service, marketing, facilities, and operations. Before you decide to begin the APO process, you should take a detailed look at your parking organization. You need to determine if the timing is right. For the LPA, it took a few years of planning, policies, and procedures before we were ready to apply. The LPA manages on- and off-street parking operations for the City of Lancaster. We are an independent municipal authority that operates like a small business. I report to a board of five members appointed by the mayor. The makeup is stated by law. We have approximately 3,650 spaces in six parking garages and surface lots and 1,200+ meters, including 40 multi-space kiosks in our central business district. We also manage the enforcement for a resident permit parking program and provide enforcement for street sweeping as required by law.
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Earning the Accredited Parking Organization (APO) distinction is the apex of a climb for the Lancaster Parking Authority (LPA) in Lancaster, Pa. It’s the culmination of years of hard work and getting the right people in the right positions that paid off.
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IPMI CEO Shawn Conrad, CAE, celebrates Lancaster Parking Authority's APO with Larry Cohen, CAPP, the authority's executive director.
LPA office in Lancaster, Pa.
Our advertised mission is to support the livability, growth, and development of the city for the benefit of residents, businesses, and visitors. The city has enjoyed publicity for its revitalization efforts that started with small businesses, a new convention center, local food scene, and of course the Amish who live throughout the county. We are also known for welcoming refugees from around the world.
and how the APO designation can help your organization. This process requires all your team members to be on board and supportive. The preparation for the APO credential will be time-consuming for at least several months, especially for one or two individuals who take the lead in the process. Be sure you have someone in charge who can handle the process from start to finish.
Instant Credibility
The APO Process
To the public, the APO has provided instant credibility. It is the assurance that the LPA (or your parking organization) is following best practices in everything we do. It is a benchmark of quality that distinguishes us from our peers, and that’s important for our community, whose members may not know anything else about the LPA other than we park cars and write tickets. Earning the accreditation is a detailed process. You should explain to your team why accreditation matters
You should begin by getting a copy of the APO criteria (more than 250 items in 14 categories). Be sure you can meet the 25 minimum requirements. Criteria on your APO application will be reviewed by an independent examiner who you choose and hire from an approved list and who will visit and conduct an onsite visit to your garages and internal operation. The onsite visit usually takes two days. Make sure your facilities are “dressed to impress.”
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In the end, earning the APO is a commitment to ongoing evaluation and quality improvement, and it just makes good sense for parking organizations to participate in it.
Scalability One factor driving our accreditation endeavor was to review that we could run with the “big boys” when comparing our parking organization to much larger parking programs. The APO process shows it is scalable. We found out that the LPA operates its parking facilities and operations at much the same level of efficiency, sustainability, and quality as much larger parking entities. I’m proud that the LPA is the first third-class (a designation by the Commonwealth based on population) parking authority to receive accreditation in Pennsylvania. We follow in the footsteps of our much larger cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, showing that we can provide parking operations on the same scale as organizations with much larger staffs and budgets.
we issue by educating people about how to comply with parking requirements, and we continue to prioritize customer service over revenues. In the end, earning the APO is a commitment to ongoing evaluation and quality improvement, and it just makes good sense for parking organizations to participate in it. I thank my peers and staff within the IPMI for their vision to deliver a first-class program we can all be proud of! ◆ LARRY J. COHEN, CAPP, is executive director of the Lancaster Parking Authority. He can be reached at lcohen@lancasterparkingauthority.com.
Celebrations Receiving the APO was the highlight of our year. We welcomed IPMI CEO Shawn Conrad, CAE, to our public board meeting in February 2019 to present the accreditation. Conrad recognized the LPA as “a parking organization that adheres to a strict code of ethics and meets national and internationally endorsed standards for professionalism, accountability, responsibility, and performance.” We also invited our mayor and other elected officeholders to attend. We received several commendations and citations from the state. We sent out a press release and posted the event on social media. We created a logo cake and invited our staff to participate in the event. And we are proud to use the logo on our print publications and marketing materials.
Pushing the Boundaries in Strategic Planning What does the APO mean to us? We view it as a benchmark of excellence and recognizing best practices in parking management and operations. The APO credential further allows us to push the boundaries of a traditional municipal parking authority moving forward. We revise our strategic plan every three to five years. New initiatives include expanding our portfolio by managing properties outside our authority and providing consulting services to nearby communities. Most recently, two strategic goals could be seen as counterintuitive: We want to reduce the number of parking tickets
Every Ticket Imaginable 800.241.8662 | info@southlandprinting.com
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