Parking & Mobility, March 2021

INTERNATIONAL PARKING & MOBILITY INSTITUTE MARCH 2021

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Advancing in 2021!

TimHaahs is now THA Consulting, Inc. THA Consulting, Inc. is excited to announce our rebranding & transition to new leadership! While our name is changing, we are the same dedicated team of professionals with extensive expertise in the unique and complex issues associated with parking and mixed-use facilities. We look forward to our new journey as THA Consulting, Inc. and the opportunity to work with you in the future!

www.tha-consulting.com

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INTERNATIONAL PARKING & MOBILITY INSTITUTE MARCH 20 21 VOL. 3 / N0. 3

FEATURES

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Boosting Campus Commute Choice

Emory University converts parking from long-term permit to pay-per-use in response to COVID-19, transforming the way its community thinks about getting to and from campus.

By Eric Haggett, LEED AP and David Lieb, TDM-CP

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COVID and the Curb

COVID-19 threw a curable at curb management.

Here’s how cities adapted.

By Mae Hanzlik

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Mobility, Innovation, and the Future

Industry professionals discuss new technologies, new business practices, and new ways of getting people from point A to point B during IPMI’s inaugural Mobility & Innovation Summit.

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Structural Marginalization and Parking and Mobility

Think marginalization isn’t part of our industry? One professional did the research and thought again.

By Shawn M. Compton, CAPP

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COVER PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK / TSYHUN

/ EDITOR’S NOTE DEPARTMENTS 4 ENTRANCE Parking and New Mobility

By Jaime López de Aguilar

6 FIVE THINGS Great Ways to Start (or Finish) Your CAPP Journey 8 THE BUSINESS OF PARKING A Matter of Perspective

By Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR

10 MOBILITY & TECH Business Intelligence Tools Offer a Path to a Data-driven Culture

By Chris Lechner, CAPP

12 ON THE FRONTLINE The Importance of Recognizing Disruption

By Cindy Campbell

14 THE GREEN STANDARD Climate-friendly Innovators and Calls for Carbon Neutrality

By Trevyr Meade

16 PARKING & MOBILITY SPOTLIGHT Cloud-based Integration: Key to Future Parking Innovation

By Michael Doherty

18 ASK THE EXPERTS 45 IN SHORT 47 AROUND THE INDUSTRY 50 PARKING & MOBILITY CONSULTANTS

University Parking IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH to get my neighborhood

email listserv whipped into a frenzy. I’ll be honest and tell you there are days I very much worry about some of the people I live near because of the things they pound into those emails when they’re upset. I lasted about six days on NextDoor for the same reason—way too much information. And I’m getting there with my kids’ universities’ Facebook groups for parents.

There are three things that seem to light those groups on fire: mandatory COVID testing, campus cafeteria food, and parking. Oh the vitriol spewed when someone’s kid can’t get a permit for a certain lot or gets a ticket, and the pandemic seems to have made things worse. There may be fewer people on campus than a non-COVID year but there’s no shortage of drama when the kid doesn’t get a space in the garage next to his dorm.

Colleges and universities have had a lot to deal with the last 12 months (has it really been a year?) right alongside the usual complaints, excuses, and antics.

The contactless systems that work for municipalities, airports, and hospitals don’t necessarily work on an academic campus, where most people used to buy semester-long permits that tied them to specific areas. The pandemic has brought about a total re-think here and some of the resulting ideas, technologies, and practices are likely to stick around awhile, if not forever.

We take a look at some of those things in this month’s issue, and I hope they give you some new things to think about that might translate to your operation.

We also spend some time on diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of our ongoing effort to get people thinking in new ways there, too; we all benefit, in the end. I hope you enjoy them and would love to hear your thoughts.

My front yard is frozen solid as I type this (no kidding—you could ice skate from the front door to the fence and back) and most of us are patiently waiting for vaccines and our slow return to what will undoubtedly be a new normal.

In-person events are starting to be announced, we’re beginning to ponder travel again, and the light at the end of this long tunnel is slowly getting bigger. I hope it’s beginning to warm up a bit by the time you read this issue and things are looking even brighter.

Until next month…

52 ADVERTISERS INDEX 53 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Kim Fernandez, editor fernandez@parking-mobility.org

PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 3

/ ENTRANCE

Parking and New Mobility

PUBLISHER

Shawn Conrad, CAE

conrad@parking-mobility.org

By Jaime López de Aguilar

EDITOR

Kim Fernandez

fernandez@parking-mobility.org TECHNICAL EDITOR

Rachel Yoka, CAPP, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP yoka@parking-mobility.org CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Bill Smith, APR

bsmith@smith-phillips.com ADVERTISING SALES AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

Tina Altman

taltman@parking-mobility.org

I

WAS DELIGHTED TO BE NOMINATED to a seat on IPMI’s Board

of Directors, and when my seat was confirmed, that feeling was transformed into honor and gratitude. IPMI is a great institution and has a great challenge ahead: to get the position our industry deserves in society.

BonoTom Studio

info@bonotom.com For subscription changes, contact Tina Altman, taltman@parking-mobility.org or 888.IPMI.NOW. Parking & Mobility (ISSN 0896-2324 & USPS 001436) is published monthly by the International Parking & Mobility Institute.

P.O. Box 3787 Fredericksburg, VA 22402 Phone: 888.IPMI.NOW Fax: 703.566.2267 Email: info@parking-mobility.org Website: parking-mobility.org Postmaster note: Send address label changes promptly to: Parking & Mobility P.O. Box 3787 Fredericksburg, VA 22402 Interactive electronic version of Parking & Mobility for members and subscribers only at parking-mobility. org/magazine.

Periodical postage paid at Alexandria, Va., and additional mailing offices. Copyright © International Parking & Mobility Institute, 2020. Statements of fact and opinion expressed in articles contained if Parking & Mobility are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent an official expression of policy or opinion on the part of officers or the members of IPMI. Manuscripts, correspondence, articles, product releases, and all contributed materials are welcomed by Parking & Mobility; however, publication is subject to editing, if deemed necessary to conform to standards of publication.

The subscription rate is included in IPMI annual dues.

Subscription rate for non-members of IPMI is $120 per year (U.S. currency) in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. All other countries, $150. Back issues, $10.

Parking & Mobility is printed on 10 percent recycled paper and on paper from trees grown specifically for that purpose.

Although it is an American institution and is largely comprised of American members and entities, IPMI has an international mission, and it is here that I can contribute with my knowledge and experience. My life has been linked to on-street parking for 34 years.

During this time, my company has managed on-street parking services in more than 50 cities in Spain, Greece, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Canada. We have also participated in biddings for several cities in the U.S., Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. I am also honorary president of the Spanish Parking Association and a member of the Board of Directors of the European Parking Association. My vision is, therefore, quite global.

I believe the most important challenge we are facing worldwide is how parking fits into the so-called new mobility. We hear everywhere the idea of giving the streets back to the pedestrian, encouraging the use of more sustainable transport methods, or hindering the use of polluting vehicles.

It seems that these are not good news for our sector, but it is important to remember some facts.

In The Netherlands and Denmark, bicycles are mostly used for everyday journeys, but the number of vehicles

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per resident is higher than in the U.K., where cycling is not so widespread. In Spain, the percentage of public transport use is twice as high as in France, but the number of inhabitants per parking spot is much higher in France.

In other words, the demand for parking spaces depends on many factors. It is not possible to preview the effect of new mobility on people’s parking behavior.

And this is why is more important than ever for our industry to be considered as a key player in the development of mobility.

Curbside management, dynamic pricing, dependent tariffs of vehicle environmental classification, complete sector digitalization, and the use of guidance apps to find available parking spaces are key tools to establishing our role in the future.

We are in living the first steps of the new mobility and I’m sure the parking industry will be an important part of its development. I look forward to working with our organizations around the world to make that so. ◆ JAIME LÓPEZ DE AGUILAR is president of Grupo Setex, Madrid, Spain, and a member of IPMI’s Board of Directors. He can be reached at jlaguilar@setex.es.

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PUBLICATION DESIGN

Great Ways to Start (or Finish) Your Journey to Interest in IPMI’s CAPP program, the most respected credential for parking and mobility professionals, has never been higher, and we’re thrilled about that! It’s a great time to start or finish your journey to CAPP and there’s no question you can do it. Here are five of our favorite ways to put yourself on track to earn your CAPP credential.

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Get all the details.

Download the CAPP Candidate Handbook, learn the requirements for certification, see the exam content outline, and more. Click here for our comprehensive list of CAPP resources.

CAPP Certification Program

CANDIDATE HANDBOOK Presented by the CAPP Certification Board of the International v. 01, 8/2019

Parking & Mobility Institute

Get the points you need. From webinars to instructor led, online courses to multi-day events, there are lots of opportunities to earn CAPP points, which you need for certification or to recertify after earning your credential. Download our Insider’s Guide to Professional Development and then check out this list of online, instructor-led courses for 2021.

IPMI International Parking & Mobility Institute 1330 Braddock Place, Suite 350, Alexandria, VA 22314 571.699.3011 Phone capp@parking-mobililty.org | parking-mobility.or g/capp

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Check out our frequently asked questions and all their answers. If you’re asking, chances are someone else is too, and we’ve compiled our FAQs into one easy list. Access the questions and answers here. Still have a question? Email us.

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Don’t forget to read about the William Voigt CAPP Scholarship Program. Thanks to the generosity of other industry members, this offers funds for CAPPs and CAPP candidates to access a variety of professional development opportunities. Get your copy of the scholarship guidelines here.

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You did it! Now find out where and how you can test. The CAPP Exam Scheduling Guide explains testing center and remote options—get your copy here. Still want to learn more? Read Seven Quick Ways to Kickstart Your CAPP.

ISTOCK / ELENABS / OLEKSANDR HRUTS / MASTERSERGEANT; SHUTTERSTOCK / PAPAAYA

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/ THE BUSINESS OF PARKING /HUMAN RESOURCES

A Matter of Perspective

By Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR

A

S WE ENTER THE LAST MONTH OF THE FIRST ­Q UARTER OF 2021, I hope each of us has had an opportunity to

Remember this: it’s OK to feel as you feel but it’s not OK to expect others to feel as you feel.

reflect on what this new year brought us after the dumpster fire that was 2020, and I hope the remainder of this year greets you and your loved ones with great favor. This month, let’s talk about communication—specifically, the plethora of information around “handling difficult conversations or communications.” What I am about to share goes against the conventional wisdom and that’s a good thing, because if you follow the crowd you usually wind up in a place you don’t want to be.

Divergent viewpoints are good. happened to me on more than one occasion. However, my efforts on those days were as good if not better than the days I wanted to work out. I didn’t go to a default position of allowing my potentially negative thoughts to become a detriment to my exercise routine. Instead, I took the perspective that this was an opportunity to grow and achieve a goal, and not allow the negative attributes to take over. I took a growth mindset over a fixed mindset and I may have started slow, but once I got going, I ended up ahead.

The Growth Mindset

A Communications Process

All communication is potentially difficult, especially if we enter the conversation with a fixed versus a growth mindset.

How many of you have been in a performance review, either as the giver or receiver? How many of you felt a certain amount of anxiety, even when the news you were giving or expected to receive was positive? Performance reviews are a classic example of how even a positive exchange can generate myriad feelings and cause anxiety. You never know when a curveball might occur.

Another example: How many of you have had an occasion when you just didn’t feel like working out? This has

So, what does all this have to do with handling difficult conversations or communications? The process we must take is the same, regardless of how we view our impending exchanges (positive or negative). There is a process we need to follow to maximize our ability to connect with others: 1. Always have a plan of what we want to communicate. It helps us value the time spent by both parties.

2. Having a plan is great, but understanding what counters you may need to employ is essential. Rarely do things go the way we plan, especially when we are engaging with another individual

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with their own frame of reference.

3. Make it personal. People want to know you will treat them as people and not just recite prepared remarks. Make the communication conversational and a real dialogue.

4. People always want to know the dreaded WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Show the benefits for everyone involved.

Deliver your information in manageable chunks. If we share a long string of information all at once, it will be forgotten. We must be able to identify what the person we are speaking to can handle at one time—know your audience.

Remember this; it’s OK to feel as you feel but it’s not OK to expect others to feel as you feel. We have to go beneath the surface to get at the real depth of what someone may feel about an issue.

And we do this by communicating in an open, transparent, and trusting manner that emphasizes our desire to see everyone take a growth mindset, which leads to mutually beneficial outcomes. ◆ JULIUS E. RHODES, SPHR, is founder and principal of the mpr group and author of BRAND: YOU Personal Branding for Success in Life and Business.

He can be reached at jrhodes@mprgroup. info or 773.548.8037.

ISTOCK / TARIK KIZILKAYA

I see communication in the same vein as money: None of us has all the money we want (with want distinguished from need). Communication is the same in that no matter how much we get, we always want more. The ability to communicate effectively is essential to building long-term, mutually beneficial and trusting relationships. I’m not saying we have to be great orators like Kennedy, King, or Gandhi, but we do need to be able to deliver our message in a manner that resonates with our intended target.

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/ MOBILITY & TECH

Business Intelligence Tools Offer a Path to a Data-driven Culture

By Chris Lechner, CAPP

D

ATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING IS CRITICAL to any efficient operation. We cannot understand our

current operations without looking at the underlying facts on the ground. This is particularly important when we are steering in new directions. Data is all around us and generated by every system we use; too often, it is under-analyzed or not analyzed at all. Barriers to analysis include technical skill, fear of the unknown, and lack of a data-driven culture.

Business Intelligence (BI) tools address these problems by lowering the skill level required to access data and by putting it into more people’s hands. These tools require process and people to be successful, but the dividends can be enormous.

UCLA has adopted this technology to provide real-time, actionable insights to staff, automate processes, and lower the skill level required to interact with data to unleash its power to make ­better decisions.

A Data-driven Approach Data-driven decisions have been part of operations for many years, but achieving a consistently data-driven approach is difficult. Operations across parking and mobility face fundamental challenges to analyzing data because there are many systems involved: permit management, pay stations, occupancy, and citation issuance just to name a few. These systems typically include reports or dashboards within each one, but what happens when you need to answer questions that involve multiple systems? For example, how does the citation rate in an area affect payment compliance? Typically, this kind of analysis is one-off, difficult to replicate, and requires a great deal of skill in Excel.

By entering the back end of systems, data gurus are able to quickly access information and deliver insight through oneoff or canned reports—even across multiple systems. UCLA Commuter and Parking services has invested in these highly skilled analysts and programmers to bridge information gaps. In fiscal 2019-2020, reports written by them were run 9,814 times, showing a huge demand for data but limited ways to access it.

Because report writing tools require specialized skill and programming knowledge, only these few could interact with data directly. This has meant that despite many efforts to close them, gaps persisted and most staff members were still unable to interact with system data in its raw form.

BI tools lower the skill level required to interact with and access the underlying data. By closing skill gaps, these tools enable exploratory data analysis, a ­ utomation of routine data exchanges—think emailing a report of new permit

EXPERIENCE, RELIABILITY, COST EFFECTIVENESS BI technology has improved efficiency, reduced waste, empowered staff, and produced a culture of data-driven decision making—gone are the days of going with your gut.

holders each Monday—and allow for cross-system comparison without the need to export. Further, these systems allow for analysis to be easily repeated and published to peers for upto-the-minute information about operations from one screen.

Standing up these platforms does require IT effort and investment in staff training but the benefits are significant.

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The Results UCLA deployed Tableau as the BI tool of choice for Commuter and Parking Services in early 2020. Since then, there have been many successes; analysts have reallocated 660 report writing hours, a space-counting process automation has saved 125 labor hours annually and more than 1,400 pieces of paper, and more than 80 dashboards have been deployed.

Perhaps the biggest impact has come from providing more people access to data. Staff members have been granted the ability to directly explore data in and across source systems without needing to possess advanced querying skills or make requests. These staff members can now explore their systems and learn about their operations independently. BI technology has improved efficiency, reduced waste, empowered staff, and produced a culture of data-driven decision making—gone are the days of going with your gut.

As operations become more and more digital with a new app every day, making sense of the pile of information is more critical than ever. The old ways of interacting with data are costly, keep information in the hands of the few, and prevent consistently data-driven decisions. BI tools offer a path forward to tackling the data issues presented to parking and mobility organizations. Using them has been key to creating a data-driven culture at UCLA Commuter and Parking Services, resulting in automated processes, expanded use of data to make decisions, information in the hands of those closest to the work, and ultimately a more efficient operation. ◆

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CHRIS LECHNER, CAPP, is assistant director for data and strategy with UCLA Commuter and Parking Services. He can be reached at clechner@ts.ucla.edu.

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/ ON THE FRONTLINE

The Importance of Recognizing Disruption

By Cindy Campbell

I

N MY ROLE WITH IPMI, I spend the majority of my time providing training to our industry’s frontline

staff. This month marks a full year of presentations and trainings being delivered virtually. How lucky I am to still be able to develop and deliver training sessions in this time of travel restrictions and social distancing. I’m passionate about my work—it’s been the most rewarding job of my professional career. But if I’m honest, the one-dimensional experience provided via Zoom or whatever virtual platform used cannot measure up to the personal connections we make when we’re able to interact face-to-face. For me, there is no replacement for that personal connection with class participants discussing their experiences or sharing details about a specific issue they’ve encountered.

Disruption The disruption of our norms can feel very challenging. While the pandemic has had global effects, we individually feel the impact in different ways. So many of us are feeling challenged and anxious, both personally and professionally, in ways we could never have imagined.

Personally, we may feel anxiety and stress over a job loss, financial obligations, childcare or homeschooling arrangements, multiple adults sharing a workspace at home, health concerns for ourselves and others, as well as severe limitations to social interaction.

Professionally, we may feel distress over significant changes to our job assignments, work hours, or the proximity of resources we need to accomplish the tasks at hand.

Given these stressors, it is no wonder that the rate of diagnosed depression, anxiety, and mental illness has dramatically increased. Now more than ever, it’s important to recognize the role that disruption may play in the current level of stress we feel. Our physical response to stress can put our mind and body on high alert (think flight or fight).

When this happens, we sometimes fail to communicate in a way that best represents us. At work, we may be short or dismissive when talking to others. It can also be tough to actively listen when we perceive someone is challenging us.

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A whole

LOT of innovation from AIMS The Challenge Let’s focus on that concept for a moment: Think about the last indignant customer you encountered. Given their bad attitude and the disrespectful behavior pointed in your direction, how eager were to you accommodate them? Did it inspire you to advocate for them, or was it more of a challenge to not respond in-kind to their contempt? I ask because as professionals, we need to recognize that our customers may be trying to cope with some of the same anxiety-provoking life disruptors that are affecting us. When these types of conflicts arise, understanding this reality can help you to maintain your professional equilibrium—as well as your dignity.

While we need to be conscious of the disruptors that changed how we accomplish our tasks—or even what our tasks are—we must also recognize that many of the expectations the public has of us and for our organizations are mostly unchanged. So what customer expectations remain the same for us regardless of all the disruption?

■ Customers still need us to be problem solvers. No matter your role in the organization, we all have a responsibility to address problems that arise. Problem solving includes efficiently responding to inquiries (that can occasionally sound like a rant), helping to educate and providing workable solutions.

■ We need to remember the importance of active listening. Sometimes our extensive work experience can get in the way of being creative and ultimately helpful. We may fall into the trap of making assumptions and having preconceived ideas about where a

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conversation is going, especially if it’s an issue we encounter with frequency.

When we are able to remain open to what the customer is sharing—even through angry words—we increase the likelihood of finding a helpful resolution to the customer’s issue.

■ They still need to be acknowledged. To be effective, we must have the capacity to convey empathy. When we can use language and make statements that convey advocacy, we increase the likelihood of a successful interaction with the customer.

■ We need to make sincere efforts to communicate professionally. Even when a customer chooses to not participate in civil dialog, it’s imperative that we maintain a helpful tone, choosing appropriate words and phrases that support our professionalism. Keep in mind that body language and facial expression can change the way your message is received by others.

Recognize that our mindset and approach to difficult customer interactions is important. Making efforts to look past the customers stress puts us in a better place, both professionally and personally.

When we can listen beyond their attitude or word choice, we are able to effectively advocate for them. While it’s our job to do this for the customer on behalf of our employer, don’t underestimate the positive impacts this approach can have on your frame of mind and professional credibility. ◆

AIMS MobilePay Today’s drivers demand

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desktop, AIMS MobilePay (aka: AMP Park) lets your customer find a parking space in your AIMS service area, pay to park, manage their account, and more... All with their smart phone!

Like all our innovations, AIMS MobilePay benefits you, too – with new revenue opportunities and a host of operational advantages.

Learn more about the AIMS Parking Management Software suite – and schedule an AIMS MobilePay demo – at

CINDY CAMPBELL is IPMI’s senior training and development specialist. She is available for onsite and online training and professional development and can be reached at campbell@parking-mobility.org.

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/ THE GREEN STANDARD

Climate-friendly Innovators and Calls for Carbon Neutrality

By Trevyr Meade, LEED GA

T

HE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH CLIMATE-CHANGE have ignited a transition that will reshape the global

economy. According to the United Nations, more than 110 countries have pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050 and China has committed to doing so by 2060. Assuming the Biden administration executes on its campaign commitments, the U.S. will also soon be on the path to carbon neutrality by 2050. In defining the trajectory of the world economy, these commitments provide us useful information about how our industry will evolve. During the next decade, the capacity to provide less carbon intensive mobility will become a vital competitive advantage. By mid-century, it will be as basic a requirement as providing accessible parking spaces.

Walking the Walk One of these investors, Urban Us’s sole focus is entrepreneurs that offer solutions related to climate change. Specifically, Urban Us invests in startups that can help cities reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen adaptability and resilience, and improve density. To date, the firm has backed more than a dozen startups that

provide the parking and mobility industry new tools to realize these goals. One such firm, Mobilyze, has created an analytics platform that enables cities, automakers and charging networks to optimize the deployment of EV charging infrastructure.

Another Urban Us startup, Xtelligent, offers traffic signal technologies that allow roads to better embrace multimodal and automated mobility.

“There’s an exciting opportunity for parking and mobility professionals interested in climate-friendly innovations to engage with the startups in our portfolio and others in the space,” says Stonly Baptiste, founding partner at Urban Us. “These entrepreneurs wake up every day thinking about how they can provide solutions to the transportation sector.

They are eager to learn as much as they can about the day-to-day experiences of parking and mobility professionals.”

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COORD, a startup with funding from Urban Us that is digitizing the curb, is leaning into the opportunity for collaboration with transportation professionals.

The startup’s digital curb challenge offers a handful of cities and large organizations a free curb management pilot as a means for their team to learn alongside parking and mobility practitioners.

Innovation Third Derivative is another firm that was founded to ensure that climate entrepreneurs have the resources they need to scale. The not-for-profit joint venture between the Rocky Mountain Institute and New Energy Nexus describes itself as a “global, vertically integrated engine for climate innovation.” The group provides climate startups access to investors, corporate partners, and market and policy expertise.

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Eliminating our industry’s dependence on one of its most essential inputs will be no easy task. Luckily, investors and entrepreneurs are increasingly focusing their dollars and ingenuity on climate-friendly innovation. According to Cleantech Group, venture capitalists invested $36 billion in climate-related technology in 2019—more than double the amount invested in 2015. About half of these investment dollars went to low-carbon transportation.

Transitioning to a zero-carbon parking and mobility industry is daunting. But it is also an exciting opportunity for our industry to grow in new ways.

“At Third Derivative, our north star is limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” says Hara Wang, transportation sector lead at Third Derivative. “Our unique model provides entrepreneurs working on climate innovations the resources and support they need to commercialize faster. We start from the perspective of understanding the technical, operational, and financial barriers preventing each market sector we work with from contributing to this goal. From there, we identify and support entrepreneurs who can fill those gaps.”

Out of more than 630 applications from 61 countries, Third Derivative has selected 47 startups to join its inaugural cohort — a quarter of which have direct applications for the transportation sector. The firm is also actively seeking corporates, mentors, and other industry partners who can support their startups in developing and scaling solutions.

Transitioning to a zero-carbon parking and mobility industry is daunting. But it is also an exciting opportunity for our industry to grow in new ways. Supporting the entrepreneurial community focused on climate-related mobility solutions is a means for us to kick-start this growth. We can provide these entrepreneurs insights into the challenges we face and the solutions they have created. In turn, they will be more likely to develop solutions that offer greater value and position us to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. ◆ TREVYR MEADE, LEED GA, is certification program lead at Green Business Certification, Inc. He can be reached at tmeade@gbci.org.

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/ PARKING & MOBILITY SPOTLIGHT/TECHNOLOGY

Cloud-based Integration: Key to Future Parking Innovation

OPINION

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By Michael Doherty

HE PARKING INDUSTRY HAS RAPIDLY ADOPTED NEW TECHNOLOGY in recent years as the

development of cutting edge services and technology continues to grow. Smart parking sensors use the Internet of Things to reduce the amount of time drivers spend searching for available parking spaces. Pay-as-you-use systems make it simpler for drivers to manage their parking sessions, and license plate recognition technology removes the need for window stickers and makes compliance easier to enforce.

Parking in the Cloud A huge amount of data goes into parking management, sourced from both the users and the providers.

For example, there are payment solutions for on- and off-street parking with different tariffs depending on time parked. For permit systems, permit holder details need to be recorded and updated year after year. Different zones and user groups introduce another layer of complexity. And compliance comes with another set of data requirements; timestamped photographs of license plates, records of infringements issued, and a way to escalate unpaid infringements to authorities are all part of the process.

User IDs, permit numbers, payment records, license plate numbers, zoning details and tariffs—that’s a lot of data to be holding in separate systems when it would be so much more efficient to bring them together.

The No. 1 benefit of introducing a cloud-based data solution in a complex parking management environment is the huge efficiencies it allows through connecting these disparate data sources in real-time. Any last remaining 16 PARKING & MOBILITY / MARCH 2021 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG

­ aper-based systems, such as permit applications or p dashboard tickets, can be brought online. Permit and parking session details can be connected to a license plate, which in turn can be connected to a staff, student, or resident ID, and a more efficient compliance system.

The parking provider no longer has to waste staff hours on cross-checking systems and working through annual renewal bottlenecks, and can see how the different elements of their parking system are performing at a glance through simplified reporting.

Cloud-based systems also have the advantage of providing live data, helping providers track car park usage and plan for the future. They also have the ability to be integrated with third party platforms and apps, and offer better security than local data storage.

Case Study: Monash University Monash University is one of Australia’s top universities but its location in the city’s outer suburbs means driving is often the preferred transportation method for staff and students. Until recently, demand for staff permits outstripped supply and permit registrations were managed manually via a spreadsheet. Many staff paid for their permits through payroll and there were long queues at the start of each year for staff wanting to apply or pay for their permits.

Meanwhile, students had to rely on old-fashioned dashboard tickets and rushing out of class early to top up their parking.

Monash introduced a number of integrated solutions to solve the problem. First, they implemented a virtual permit system to eliminate stickers and long queues for applications. Staff were able to log in to a centralized platform to obtain permits, connect them to the license

ISTOCK / PHONLAMAIPHOTO

However, behind all that innovation, some parking providers are still hesitant to merge together the many sources of data and services used in their parking management processes. Whether it’s due to parking technology companies resisting working with perceived competitors or the amount of effort involved in stitching together legacy systems, many parking operators are still relying on outdated and cumbersome systems behind the scenes. While they may be quick to embrace the latest technology on the ground, by keeping their data in silos they are missing out on the significant advantages of cloud-based integration.

plate numbers of whatever vehicles they drive to work, and choose from several payment options.

The university also replaced its old ticket system with a ­natively contactless, pay-as-you-go system connected to an app. The university’s compliance system was upgraded to a license plate recognition system, and they installed LPR ­technology on a boom-gated VIP car park.

All of Monash’s legacy parking systems were folded into one, which was integrated with their existing single sign-on platform and carpooling app. The university has reported a significant reduction in staff hours spent on parking administration, particularly at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria when staff were requesting refunds on their permits.

There is still so much innovation to come in the parking industry, but the reluctance to embrace data integration is holding it back. The restriction of data synchronization and the industry’s inability to create a cohesive tech ecosystem is inhibiting the potential for new parking technology and the widespread adoption of smarter parking solutions. It’s time for the industry to reach for the cloud. ◆ MICHAEL DOHERTY is head of business development with Smarter City Solutions. He can be reached at michael.d@smartercity.com.au.

Always with 800.241.8662

info@southlandprinting.com

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PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 17

ASK

THE

EXPERTS What are you most looking forward to about the return of in-person industry events such as the IPMI Parking & Mobility Conference & Expo?

Vicky Gagliano, CAPP

Scott C. Bauman, CAPP

Casey Jones, CAPP

Director of Parking Studies THA Consulting

Manager of Parking & Mobility Services City of Aurora, Colo.

Senior Parking & Mobility Planner DESMAN

Having spent 20 years in the industry, there are so many great people with whom I only cross paths on occasion due to geography, sector, or the fact that I do not work with them on a regular basis. Being able to experience the long overdue human connections with my parking friends is needed now more than ever because of the toll COVID-19 has taken on all of us.

In-person networking with colleagues and reconnecting with old friends is fantastic.

However, having direct access to all industry vendors, dealers, and suppliers under a single roof—that’s priceless!

It will be a joy to see my parking and mobility friends without the worry of whether they can see my screen or not or if I have the correct speaker settings set.

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Tiffany Peebles Executive Director Parking Authority, Louisville, Ky. I am most looking forward to the opening ceremony and speaker. There is always a dynamic speaker who is engaging, usually with humor, thoughtprovoking stories, and applicable experience.

Debbie Hoffmann, CAPP, MS Director, Parking Services Texas A&M University During the past year, colleagues have rallied around one another bringing support, solutions and smiling faces through virtual meetings and phone calls. Still, there is an irreplaceable dynamic that only comes from face time. I am looking forward to SEEING everyone, and most of all, connecting in the casual down time outside of sessions where we just catch up, talk, rejuvenate our friendships, and laugh.

“We needed an enforcement system that could provide a quick, convenient, and efficient citation issuance process.

IPS was that solution.”

– Larry Lightfoot, Lake Worth Beach, FL Parking Enforcement Sr. Manager

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Mark Lyons, CAPP Division Manager, Parking & Mobility City of Sarasota, Fla. It is always a special occasion to catch up with colleagues on a professional and personal level, and the IPMI Conference & Expo provides this opportunity.

Moreover, it enables one to extemporaneously share ideas or questions that otherwise would be missed on a phone call.

Kim Jackson, CAPP Director, Transportation & Parking Services Princeton University I am soooo looking forward to seeing all the amazing people in our industry, in person—the IPMI Board, staff and all our members. The bonus is all the great information that will be shared, so missed during COVID.

David Hill, CAPP CEO Clayton Hill Associates Ltd. People. Human contact.

Can you believe it? I never thought I would say that— can’t wait to replace social distancing with human proximity.

Vanessa Solesbee, CAPP Parking & Transit Manager Town of Estes Park, Colo.

Ah, where do I start!?

First and foremost, I am excited to see the kind, smiling and supportive faces of my friends and colleagues from all over the world. I also gain so much knowledge through serendipitous connections between educational sessions and at networking events. And while we have all gotten creative over the past year to continue identifying and making connections virtually, the random magic that happens when you bump into someone new. I am packing my bags!

Erik Nelson, PCIP Director of Operations and Technology Consulting Walker Consultants It will be really nice to see clients, vendors, and other attendees of upcoming live events, but what I am looking forward to most is seeing my colleagues live and in person. We are a geographically diverse workforce, and the IPMI show is one of a few times a year when we are all together. The pandemic has reinforced to me how valuable that time is.

/ HAVE A QUESTION? Send it to editor@parking-mobility.org and watch this space for answers from the experts.

The opinions and thoughts expressed by the contributors do not necessarily reflect the opinions and viewpoints of the International Parking & Mobility Institute or official policies of IPMI.

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Save the date for the next Mobility & nnovation Summit June 29 - 30, 2021 Get insight on trends and industry segments from expert speakers on topics that include: The Mobility Landscape and the Role of Transit Pilots, Data, and Real-Life Outcomes at the Curb TDM, Alternative Modes, and Micro-mobility Innovation in the Mobility Space Meets Policy & Regulatory Frameworks Integrating Data for Effective, Meaningful Change: APDS Outlook and Applications for our Industry and much more...

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Commute Choice Emory University converts parking from long-term permit to pay-per-use in response to COVID-19, transforming the way its community thinks about getting to and from campus.

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By Eric Haggett, LEED AP and David Lieb, TDM-CP

I

N THE WAKE OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC,

the question of shifting from long-term parking permit programs (e.g., monthly, semester, or annual permits) to nimbler, daily-only parking is moving to the forefront. Campuses operating under hybrid instruction models and maintaining a higher degree of telework are seeing changing demographics and demand patterns. Commuters do not need the same level of access as they did pre-pandemic and many don’t want to pay as if they have the same requirements to be present on campus.

While fewer faculty, staff, and students may be concurrently coming to campus, the numbers of people driving—and driving alone—is expected to increase, as commuters remain wary of shared transportation options such as transit and carpools. Many campuses also expect to see more residential students bringing cars to campus, in case they need to evacuate quickly. Some of these demand-pattern changes are likely to persist in the longerterm, even post-pandemic.

Last summer, in response to COVID-19 pandemic conditions and the rapidly changing needs of the campus, Emory University in Atlanta converted most of its parking for faculty, staff, and students from long-term permits to a pay-per-use model. This made commuting choice a daily decision among transit, biking, walking, teleworking, or driving and parking.

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The Evolution College and university parking systems and programs go through an evolution as campuses grow and change. The continuum is one from providing to operating to managing parking—this often includes a transition from “hunting licenses” to facility- or zone-based permits and, perhaps, the use of access controls.

Historically, regardless of where an institution is on this continuum, the tendency has been to assign parking privileges

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BOOSTING CAMPUS COMMUTE CHOICE

for non-visitors via long-term permits. Permits are issued on either a monthly, semester, or annual basis (or some combination) and privileges are assigned based on class rank, residential or commuter status, employee type/seniority, and/or price.

In recent years, some campuses have expressed an interest in re-examining long-term parking permits in favor of vending parking solely on a day-to-day ­basis. Often, the initiative for such considerations was taken by sustainability-focused departments or organizations on campus, not necessarily by the parking/ transportation department. This is due to the potential for daily parking programs to influence commuter behavior, resulting in environmental benefits such as reaching campus emissions targets and/or climate commitments. As one of many sea changes in 2020, desire for daily parking programs began coming directly from customers: faculty, staff, and students who were not required to be on campus everyday and, in fact, may have been prohibited from being there.

Emory University in Atlanta converted most of its parking for faculty, staff, and students from longterm permits to a pay-per-use model. This made commuting choice a daily decision among transit, biking, walking, teleworking, or driving and parking.

Pros and Cons Even pre-pandemic, many institutions had already begun to consider switching from long-term to daily parking options. While long-term permits offer higher education institutions the benefits of a stable/defined revenue stream, simplicity of management, and the need for little technology to operate the parking system, there are also several downsides. For many institutions, the primary downside of long-term permits is their tendency to promote greater use of single-occupant vehicles (SOVs), leading to significant negative environmental impacts and crowding and frustration in parking facilities. Additionally, constructing and maintaining parking capacity to accommodate more and more SOVs on campus is often cost-prohibitive for many institutions. From an operational perspective, allowing only certain permit holders to park in each facility can result in parking that is not used to its full potential. This often means that the most convenient, proximal parking spaces sit empty while large numbers of users must park remotely or in less-convenient spaces.

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From the user’s perspective, while long-term parking permits offer the benefits of a defined parking destination every day with the cost paid upfront (or pre-tax, payroll deducted) and the ability to park an unlimited number of times per period, there are also several downsides. For students especially, the lumpsum cost of a semester or annual parking permit can be significant and the choice of parking location can be less than ideal. These types of permits also often require the user to hunt for an available space in one or a few facilities. Long-term permit holders may also end up paying more for their permit than the value of the parking they use, if they come to campus fewer times than anticipated in a given month, semester, or year— an increasing possibility in a post-COVID world.

At Emory University, the choice to switch from long-term permits to daily parking was driven primarily by a desire to provide equitable access to campus during a time of great upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emory University’s Choice Last summer, Emory University chose to proactively address the COVID-related changes in demand patterns and leverage an already-planned equipment upgrade to better serve their customers. Like other institutions, due to the pandemic, Emory experienced a high degree of work-from-home activity and was anticipating a fall semester with hybrid (in-person/ online) classes.

Most employees were required to work from home nearly all the time and were getting little value from their monthly parking permits. Other employees designated as essential were required to be on campus every day. However, both were paying the same monthly fee of $56. Similarly, beginning in the fall, only certain students were going to be allowed on campus to attend in-person classes (a number that grew even smaller as the virus continued to take hold), while student permits were still set to be sold for $336 per semester.

Given these unusual circumstances, the university decided the most equitable approach would entail charging faculty, staff, and students only for the days when they parked (at a cost of $6 per day). In order to ensure that the daily rate did not penalize anyone, the university decided that each month (or semester) the fees paid by any parker would accrue only up to the amount previously paid for a long-term parking permit.

This meant that faculty/staff fees were capped at $56 per month (or slightly more than nine parking days per

As one of many sea changes in 2020, desire for daily parking programs began coming directly from customers: faculty, staff, and students who were not required to be on campus everyday and, in fact, may have been prohibited from being there.

The Process

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When Emory began investigating the potential to implement daily parking on its main campus in Atlanta, it was only about two months before the start of the 2020 fall semester. Given all the unknowns surrounding what the fall semester would look like on campus, Emory Transportation and Parking Services staff, along with consultants, engaged in a fluid planning process for the conversion to daily parking.

Emory selected an equipment/software/app provider that could meet the changing needs of the campus and update and replace existing, obsolete technology.

This required significant support from in-house IT staff to make the system capable of carrying out daily parking in a way that would meet operational goals. The data management system was constructed in only six weeks!

Every campus community member who wanted parking privileges was issued new parking credentials.

Parking privileges were revamped to concentrate parking for as many people as possible at locations adjacent to their campus destinations (in a way that isn’t possible when the campus is operating at typical peak demand levels). This helped support walkability and reduced the demands on Emory’s shuttle system, which was operating at much lower capacity to allow for appropriate social distancing.

The university selectively retained long-term permits in certain areas. For example, students living on campus and therefore parking nearly all day, every day still purchase semester parking permits; it would make little sense to have them pay daily. Similarly, Emory University Hospital staff, most of whom—by the nature of their jobs— cannot work remotely, are still offered monthly permits.

What’s Next? month) and student fees were capped at $336 per semester (or 56 parking days per semester). Parking beyond those numbers of days would be recorded, but not charged. Faculty/staff are charged monthly, in arrears, and the funds are still pre-tax dollars.

Emory’s decision to cap the total parking cost for the various campus populations virtually guaranteed that parking and transportation services, a selfsupporting campus auxiliary operation, will generate less revenue than under the old long-term permit system. However, this was a conscious choice that was made to support the university’s faculty, staff, and students through the pandemic. Emory fully intends to revisit its daily pricing structure in the future so the operation can once again be financially self-sustaining.

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As the pandemic subsides and campus parking demand returns to more typical levels with students attending classes in-person and faculty and staff coming to campus more often than not, the university plans to adapt the daily parking program. The aim will be to optimize the program from an operational perspective while supporting the university community and returning the system to financial stability. Further, as shared modes of transportation (e.g., transit, carpooling, and vanpooling) become more desirable again, a program of pay-as-yougo parking can be a great incentive to change behaviors.

Commuters will be able to make their commuting choices on a daily basis rather than trying to squeeze every bit of value out of the sunk cost of a long-term parking permit for which they have already paid.

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BOOSTING CAMPUS COMMUTE CHOICE

Parking privileges were revamped to concentrate parking for as many people as possible at locations adjacent to their campus destinations (in a way that isn’t possible when the campus is operating at typical peak demand levels). This helped support walkability and reduced the demands on Emory’s shuttle system, which was operating at much lower capacity to allow for appropriate social distancing.

Is Pay-As-You-Go Right for Your Campus?

As parking systems go, switching to pay-as-you-go parking from a system of long-term permits is—shall we say—an upper division course. It will be beneficial to take an honest look at the sophistication of the current system and judge whether or not (to torture the metaphor further) you need to take an intro-level course first—such as shifting from a system of broad privileges (buy a permit and park in any space) to a system of zoneor tier-based parking before undertaking the large-scale shift to pay-as-you go. As with any advanced course, there are prerequisites to consider: ■ Willingness to accept that some frequent parkers will pay more per month or semester than they were when purchasing long-term permits.

■ Understanding that some functions (e.g., residence hall parking) won’t make sense to convert to pay-as-you-go.

■ Ability to adjust to conditions in which the revenue stream is less predictable; ■ Installation of technology to record the use of parking on a given day (but not charge for multiple uses on the same day for people that leave and return).

■ Implementation of technology that helps people find parking when demand may vary widely from day-today (e.g., rainy days).

■ Flexibility and willingness to adapt as demand patterns emerge and change.

Most campus parking operations are auxiliaries and, as such, are expected to be financially selfsustaining. With this in mind, it is worth recognizing that many parking customers will spend less as a result of paying only for the time they use. Therefore, the institution must be prepared for the fact that those campus community members who park every day will end up paying more than they were before as a consequence to maintain financial equilibrium.

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The effects of this can be mitigated by offering tiered pricing, allowing people to choose less convenient parking in return for spending an amount equivalent to the previously offered “all-you-can-eat” permits.

A consequent benefit of a program of daily rates that are tiered by convenience can be a more balanced use of the campus’s parking facilities. The program can be further nuanced to encourage turnover of the campus’s premium spaces by charging for them by the hour, with a daily maximum. A pay-as-you-go parking program requires technology for monitoring, access control, payment processing, administration, and parking guidance. Having the right set of tools will make the program run more smoothly, allow for modifications as necessary to meet customer demand and financial goals, and provide a higher level of customer service.

This can include ease of payment and guidance systems that allow customers to find available parking quickly and easily in a less predictable environment.

Another consideration is whether there are areas on campus for which long-term parking options ought to be retained. For example, Emory continues to offer long-term permits for parking at its medical center and at residence halls.

Going Forward The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity for disruption in commuter behavior—one that can be accomplished in a way that more closely addresses customer desires. A pay-as-you-go parking program can save many commuters money and can encourage people to consider their commutes on a daily basis— whether to walk, bike, use transit, carpool, vanpool, or work remotely, as is appropriate to their situation, job demands, and pocketbook. There are ways to offer these programs that give people access to parking they otherwise didn’t have privileges for; to build in equity that protects vulnerable commuters; to make the parking system nimbler and more flexible; and to distribute demand more evenly through the system. ◆ ERIC HAGGETT, LEED AP, is a senior consultant with Walker Consultants. He can be reached at ehaggett@walkerconsultants.com.

DAVID LIEB, TDM-CP, is national director of higher education mobility planning with Walker Consultants. He can be reached at dlieb@walkerconsultants.com.

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28 PARKING & MOBILITY / MARCH 2021 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG

rew 9 th urb 1 ID tc COV eball a rv t. a cu g emen a man ’s how . d e Her adapte s citie

By M

an ae H

zlik

T ISTOCK / VASIL DIMITROV / ENJOYNZ

RANSPORTATION FOR AMERICA’S 2020 COHORT of the Smart Cities Collaborative was always meant to focus on curbside management. But then came COVID-19, radically shifting all aspects of our lives—including how we use curbs.

Transportation for America’s new report, COVID and the Curb, explores how the cohort cities adapted their curb management strategies to support public health and small businesses, and outlines ideas for better curb policy at the local, state, and federal levels.

During the past few years, demands on curb space have skyrocketed. From transit, new mobility options, parking, pick-ups and deliveries, parklets, and temporary living spaces set up by people experiencing homelessness, cities have been challenged to equitably and flexibly allocate curb space.

COVID-19 took this challenge to the next level. The pandemic accelerated some of the changing uses of and growing demand on the curb already underway and shined a light on the immense value of the curb and its crucial role in preventing the spread of COVID-19. The curb helped support community health and economies, be it through curbside pickup, curbside dining, e-commerce delivery, slow streets, curbside COVID-19 testing, and more.

Using the Curb to Respond To prevent the spread of COVID-19, city and state governments put in place new guidelines and restrictions

that closed or partially closed businesses, restaurants, public gathering spaces, parks, trails, and more to protect public health. Local governments needed to get creative, being keenly aware of the debilitating effects of COVID-19 on people’s mental and physical health, access to essential resources, employment status, and small businesses. These issues were all the more significant because of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on certain communities, particularly Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color. In response, cities across the country piloted new solutions, swapped use cases with peers, stayed as nimble as possible and reassessed how government assets could better and more equitably serve the public during this crisis.

As part of the response, a number of cities reprogrammed curb and street space for retail, outdoor dining, and active transportation; worked with communities to design curb pilots; and set up temporary transit PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 29

COVID AND THE CURB

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pedited to take a matter of weeks, rather than months.

■ In Ann Arbor, city staff developed a parking space

repurposing program to allow 40 restaurants to use the on-street parking spaces in front of their properties for extended patio space at no cost to businesses.

■ In San Francisco, as traffic started to slowly return after the initial lockdown, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) set up temporary transit lanes to ensure “that essential workers and transit-dependent San Franciscans do not bear the costs of traffic congestion.” By devoting lanes solely for buses, SFMTA reduced the amount of time buses spend in traffic, protecting public health by reducing riders’ travel time and hence their potential exposure to COVID-19.

■ The City of Gainesville, Fla., repurposed a microtransit vehicle and used it to conduct mobile COVID-19 testing at the curb across its city. When selecting neighborhoods to visit and receive testing, Gainesville specifically prioritized neighborhoods that had more limited access to personal vehicles.

■ The City of Minneapolis, in response to COVID-19 and uprisings following the murder of George Floyd, worked with community partners to revamp its 2019 Mobility Hub pilot by increasing the number of pilot locations, adding new elements, and installing intersection safety improvements.

Policy The curb is public space and a public asset; as such, it should be utilized to the greatest benefit of the public.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only made this more

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lanes and COVID-19 testing sites. Due to the urgent nature of the crisis, cities developed new approaches to a number of challenges (many rooted in issues that existed far before COVID-19) and identified processes that should be revisited post-pandemic.

Some overarching challenges cities faced included: ■ Balancing equitable community engagement with pressure to provide quick solutions.

■ Wrestling with what is public space, who is it for, and what it should look like.

■ Identifying pilot locations.

■ Revising permitting processes to be less arduous and more equitable.

■ Communicating clearly new regulations and processes.

■ Locating staff capacity to implement and maintain pilots and projects.

■ Determining when and how to make pilots sustainable in the long-term.

Here is how some cities responded to the challenges (learn more about how other cities responded by checking out the case studies featured in COVID and the Curb): ■ The City of Boston waived and reduced outdoor dining permit requirements, which previously involved surveyed and engineered design drawings, a public hearing, multi-departmental permitting, and fees. The majority of these requirements were either waived or reduced and the review and approval process was ex-

Local governments needed to get creative, being keenly aware of the debilitating effects of COVID-19 on people’s mental and physical health, access to essential resources, employment status, and small businesses.

apparent as curb space has been needed for safe recreation, retail, restaurants, and more. To ensure that curb space can be used efficiently and equitably now and in the future, it is the responsibility of local governments to set priorities with regard to who can use the limited amount of curb space, for what, when, and at what cost.

Today residents, elected officials, and small business owners are paying closer attention to the curb and how it can be strategically leveraged for the public’s benefit. This provides cities with an opportunity to shift management of their curbs in a way that is more: ■ Equitable. Serving all users, especially the most vulnerable curb users.

■ Flexible. Responding to changing community needs within a given context.

■ Innovative. Allowing cities to pilot new approaches and tools to ensure the curb can continue to evolve and serve all users.

Here are some select policy ideas outlined in the report. (The full list of policies can be found in COVID and the Curb.)

■ Prioritize curb and street space for transit. Part of equitably allocating curb space means prioritizing

space for transit. Transit uses space more efficiently than cars, is better for our climate, and provides access to those who may not have a personal vehicle. By prioritizing space for transit, cities can improve the riders’ travel time, ride quality, transportation affordability, and safety while waiting for transit; address broader transportation inequities; and achieve emissions reduction goals.

■ Ensure curb signage is understandable and accessible. Curb signs and curb use information should be simple and understandable, utilizing symbols or color-coding when possible and providing translations when appropriate. Cities should avoid confusing and complex restrictions for loading zones and curb use. Cities should also provide multiple ways to pay for metered parking, as individuals may not have a smartphone, data plans that allow liberal use of apps, or a credit card for payment. Moreover, clear curb signage and wayfinding reduces the need for enforcement and ticketing.

■ Streamline permitting processes to increase curb access to small business owners. Oftentimes city permitting processes can be arduous and

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COVID AND THE CURB

overwhelming, especially for small businesses who often have less capacity, time, and expertise in completing permits. To ensure all businesses can access curb space, cities should consider reevaluating their processes to eliminate any unnecessary steps.

■ Allow demand-based curb management. Cities should update their ordinances to ensure they can be as flexible as possible with their curb pricing and allocation. By building flexibility into a curb management approach, cities can more easily adapt to changes in future demand and support more dynamic use of existing on-street parking spaces. This will also improve a To build buy-in and ensure city’s ability to accommodate a that the guidelines align number of uses at different times of with a city’s values and the day.

■ Set up city-specific curb guidevision for use of the curb, lines. Often, cities’ default position cities should work within is to designate the curb lane for parkand across departments, ing. The idea that parking is essensuch as transportation and tial to a city’s economy is ingrained within engineering, business, and public works, in addition to some policy circles. To combat this elected leadership. notion, cities should create a comprehensive set of curb-use guidelines. Such a framework would provide guidance for a city on the prioritized use(s) of the curb—which may change depending on the time of day or location within the city—through a “curb use hierarchy” that can inform future curb management decisions. To build buy-in and ensure that the guidelines align with a city’s values and vision for use of the curb, cities should work within and across departments, such as transportation and public works, in addition to elected leadership. Curb use guidelines will lead to a better understanding of how best to manage the curb and allow cities to address curb-related issues concerning land use and equity through policy decisions.

■ Identify new ways to allow for piloting outside the traditional procurement or permitting processes. One of the biggest barriers to ensuring the curb can be a space of innovation is a city’s procurement and permitting requirements. While these processes are crucial to a city’s operations, they are often not compatible with testing and innovation and can slow down pilots to the point where the original goals are no longer relevant. Because pilots are important for testing what interventions are successful and will benefit the community, cities should create internal mechanisms that allow piloting and innovation to occur.

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■ Require data sharing between private operators

and cities. Cities should require private sector companies to share data to operate at the curb or in the right-of-way. Requiring data sharing will help cities’ efforts to better manage the curb. Data allows cities to make strategic decisions about curb use to better manage changing demands and city priorities. Data helps cities make decisions that align their values and priorities with their curbside operations, from planning to engineering to implementation.

■ Permit automated enforcement. Many states restrict the use of automated enforcement. Without the ability to use technology to enforce curb policies, cities are still relying upon traditional, analog enforcement models that are limited to monitoring parking meters and issuing tickets. Allowing automated enforcement at the state level would provide local entities with the ability to use digital and camera technology to automatically enforce curb spaces.

When permitting, states should also ensure that city implementation of automated enforcement technology is applied and deployed equitably and does not disproportionately penalize Black and Brown people.

■ Set a universal curbside language and standards. There is no uniform way that local governments define the curb and its users. The lack of universal curbside language and standards (UCLS) creates a number of issues for everyone, most notably local governments, regional and state governments, and private companies. There is a role for the federal government to develop a set of universal curbside language and standards and it should be developed with these five principles in mind.

The Smart Cities Collaborative is a yearlong program run by Transportation for America (T4America) for public sector transportation leaders to share their experiences with new mobility technologies and develop best practices to ensure that these services improve city life.

Transportation for America hopes the report can serve as a resource for cities interested in implementing curb pilots and longer-term curb programs, as well as adjusting policies to ensure curbs can be flexible, allocated equitably, and places of innovation. Learn more about Transportation for America and the Smart Cities Collaborative at t4america.org.

MAE HANZLIK is a program manager at Smart Growth America and the primary author of COVID and the Curb. She can be reached at mhanzlik@smartgrowthamerica.org.

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Mobility, Innovation, and the Future

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Industry professionals discuss new technologies, new business practices, and new ways of getting people from point A to point B during IPMI’s inaugural Mobility & Innovation Summit.

F

ROM CURB MANAGEMENT TO MICRO-MOBILITY PARKING and man-

agement to contactless and beyond, every trend and model sparked or encouraged by the COVID-19 pandemic got a thorough discussion during IPMI’s Mobility & Innovation Summit last month, and the conversations continued well beyond the sessions where they started.

More than 530 industry professionals from all sectors spent two half-days in sessions and networking lounges with top experts—including those who’ve put new practices to work in the real world—and both the educational content and the chat boxes flew. Questions were frequent and detailed—and the answers were as well, including what happened when new things were tried, how challenges were overcome, and what pitfalls have emerged (with solutions) as people changed the way they worked, recreated, and lived their lives during the pandemic.

Innovation Through Culture

More than 530 industry professionals learned, exchanged ideas, and networked during IPMI’s virtual Mobility & Innovation Summit last month.

The Summit kicked off with a keynote by Steve Lerch, a former Google executive and now CEO of Story Arc Consulting. Lerch talked about the lessons he learned about management and innovation at Google and why innovation doesn’t always come from obvious places. The company’s willingness to listen to everybody on staff—including newbies and entry-level employees—led to some of its greatest innovations, including a wide-reaching employee shuttle system that let workers do something other than drive every day and allowed the company to recruit for talent from farther away. The system, now a model for other large companies, was suggested and developed by a new employee at Google; it came to

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life because executives were willing to listen.

“Imagine describing social media or smartphones to people at one of IPMI’s first shows in the 1960s,” said Lerch. “Would they think it was possible? Something as crazy as teleporting seems more realistic in our society than something like a smartphone did in the 1960s, just 50 years ago. That’s the power of innovation.”

He talked about companies like Google and Apple developing reputations for innovation, and that it seems natural as they employ some of the world’s top engineers and have multi-billion-dollar budgets. But the real key, he said, was having a culture of innovation that’s a taught thing throughout the company.

It was Lerch’s job to orient new employees to working for Google, and that meant more than desk assignments, email protocol, and health insurance forms. “My job was to teach large groups of new employees about our culture: the history of Google, what we did, and why, and what makes Google innovative,” he said. That meant letting them know their ideas would always have an audience in the C suite.

“Innovation is just finding new approaches and new ways to tackle challenges,” he explained, offering examples of where a lack of foresight halted innovation, including Kodak’s rejection of an offer to buy Instagram when that platform was just starting.

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MOBILITY, INNOVATION, AND THE FUTURE

Keith Hutchings, City of Detroit, shared his city’s newest transportation projects, including a system-wide app, during Inspiration & Innovation from Every Corner of the Parking, Transportation, and Mobility Industry.

“Kodak didn’t buy Instagram because it was outside the norm.” he said. He continued, “None of us can predict the future. There is potential that every year, every month, there could be a breakout technology that changes life on this planet. You cannot build a successful business based on a good idea or a good product—no matter how relevant it is today, it could be irrelevant tomorrow. Success comes with a culture of coming up with good ideas.”

Lerch told the story of Richard Montañez, the son of Mexican grape pickers in southern California who dropped out of school in fourth grade and took a series of low-paying jobs to help his 14-member family, who lived in a one-room home. He eventually landed as a $4 per hour janitor at Frito-Lay plant; he couldn’t read enough to fill out his own job application. “Make sure that floor shines,” his grandfather told him.

One day, the Cheeto machine spat out a batch of Cheetos without any cheese dust on them. Montañez took them home and sprinkled them with spices for his family—and had an idea. He called the company’s CEO and requested a meeting and long story short, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos became one of the company’s top sellers— and Montañez worked his way up to the C-suite.

“Is that a meeting your executives would take?” asked Lerch.

They key to innovation, he said, is “an outward display from the top down that new ideas are valuable and will be heard and respected.” It’s also always thinking ahead: “Google got better after version 1, and

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that’s because they were already planning version 2 before that first version even launched.”

“Embrace feedback for the gift it is,” Lerch said.

And he finished with two more thoughts: “Connect the dots between what your company does every day and why the work you do matters,” and “Nobody is anti-good idea. They’re anti-what scares them.”

Lerch then spent time in the day’s two open networking rooms, chatting with attendees and answering questions about his presentation and beyond.

The Curb of the Future Another panel featured Robert Ferrin, the City of Columbus, Ohio; Brandy Stanley, CAPP, the City of Las Vegas; Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Open Mobility Foundation; and Andisheh Ranjbari, PhD, University of Washington Urban Freight Lab, talking about the curb of the future, including what they’ve learned and enacted that’s worked and what the data tells them about the future.

Ferrin kicked off with a short introduction of the curb management program in Columbus. “We know our curbs can no longer be static—they have to be dynamic,” he said, before handing things off to Stanley, who explained the extensive system piloted in Las Vegas recently, including unforeseen challenges and how they were resolved.

Curb management, she said, is a “huge beast,” with so many competing demands for limited space. Las Vegas concentrated first on identifying its biggest

pain points, one of which is simply moving people around the city. She worked to launch a pilot program in old downtown Las Vegas—Fremont Street—where hotels are older and don’t have off-street motor lobbies; everyone uses the street to load and unload passengers and goods. The introduction of TNCs, she said, created more congestion, especially around casinos, and begin an uptick in unsafe behavior by both drivers and riders.

“We put together a task force,” she said, which them “chose one half of one block of one city street, and one side of that street, so it’s six spaces.” That was transformed into a designated immediate loading/unloading zone. “You can only be there if you’re dropping off or picking up passengers.”

The first challenge happened almost immediately: “We realized we had to staff that area almost 24/7,” Stanley said, at a payroll cost of $25,000 per month.

But once that shook out, the zone was “a huge success,” and proved able to move huge numbers of people through the area without increasing congestion or encouraging dangerous maneuvers.

The city began investigating technology to help keep things moving. “When one or more of the staff weren’t there, the zone failed almost immediately,” Stanley said. “Literally, the curb filled up with cars that just stayed there.”

She issued an RFP and installed camera-based kiosks that tell drivers when they have to move on, where available spaces are, and can collect data beyond parking, including how many people walk by them.

She will also use a parking garage for TNC driver staging. Drivers download an app that gives them access to free parking and amenities that include porta-potties, food truck options, and free WiFi. “It helps get them off the street,” Stanley explained. That will launch when businesses start re-opening in ernest later this year. Lots of questions were answered during Stanley’s presentation and there was a lot of interest in the curb-management kiosks.

Ranjbari then took the screen to talk about her research into curb behavior, including ride-alongs with delivery drivers to understand their parking behavior; research team members wore GPS devices and shadowed drivers from UPS, Amazon, and other carriers.

“It informed a lot of future research,” she said. Thanks to that and a grant, she’s working now on developing an app that shows real-time curb parking occupancies and predicted occupancies to let drivers plan and find parking spaces earlier at their destinations. The system is sensor-based and currently being piloted in two areas: one with in-ground sensors, and one with above-ground cameras. Soon, she hopes to recruit drivers to test the system and see if the predictive information works as intended.

Andisheh Ranjbari, PhD, University of Washington Urban Freight Lab, shared results of her study on delivery drivers’ parking habits and needs.

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MOBILITY, INNOVATION, AND THE FUTURE

Brandy Stanley, CAPP, explained new curbmanagement kiosks in the City of Las Vegas.

■ How COVID-19 Changed Curbside Management

Finally, Franklin-Hodge talked about the digital infrastructure that needs to be paired with physical infrastructure in cities to help manage the curb. “We have a fundamental responsibility to manage public space for the public good,” he said. Developing digital infrastructure to merge with the existing physical infrastructure will do that.

Topics of Conversation The Mobility & Innovation Summit brought together a long list of sessions on various topics having to do with mobility and the future. These included: ■ Scooter Parking: Understanding the Reasons for Improper Parking and Identifying Solutions, by experts from Lime, Cornell University, TU Dortmund University, and the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

Jascha FranklinHodge, Open Mobility Foundation, explained five principles of curb data to make curb management more effective.

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to Better Serve Pedestrians and Micro-mobility, by experts from Sam Schwartz, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

■ The Hybrid Workplace: What it Means for Parking Technology, Commute Flexibility, and Mode Shift, by experts from Luum, Arrive, Nelson/Nygaard, and Bedrock Detroit.

■ Ahead of the Curb: How to Maximize Facility Design and Stretch Your Dollars, by experts from McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., and International Parking Design (IPD).

■ Curbside Management: Understanding Disruption and Demand-based Responses, by experts from City Tech Collaborative, Stantec, Teralytics, and HERE Technologies.

In addition, Innovation Labs showcased technologies and solutions with demos, presentations, and plenty of Q&A, and Spark sessions offered shorter, rapid-fire opportunities to learn about more pinpointed topics that included parking technology, user engagement and apps, commercial vehicle loading technology and regulation, and parking structure construction, among others.

Inspiration and Innovation The final panel discussion was Inspiration & Innovation from Every Corner of the Parking, Transportation, and Mobility Industry, moderated by Mike Drow, CAPP, PE, T2 Systems, Inc., and with panelists Stan Caldwell, Carnegie Mellon University; John Shumway, McCarran International Airport; and Keith Hutchings, City of Detroit.

Caldwell kicked off by talking about technologies that are disrupting transportation: ■ Automation.

■ Connectivity.

■ Shared use.

■ Electrification.

■ Novel modes, including drones, hyperloops, etc.

All of these, he explained, are independent but have to be considered as being on parallel paths toward the future of getting around. The most significant trend, he said, is going to be a mindset that equates parking with charging; people will expect to charge their electric vehicles when they park, and it’s up to the parking to figure out how that will happen.

Shumway talked about all the effects on the airport in Las Vegas during the pandemic, including a massive reduction in passenger traffic, revenue, and parking, among other things. He spent a bit of time on the airport and city’s recovery and the path to bringing those numbers back up—which is starting to happen—and getting people back to a city whose major industry is tourism.

Finally, Hutchings talked about the changes in Detroit, many of which he detailed in the November issue of Parking & Mobility. “You need a scalable system so you don’t have to reinvent every time something changes,” he said. He also talked about integrating public and private parking into one system that’s seamless for consumers, and the importance of an app like the one Detroit developed to give visitors one option for all their transportation needs, including knowing what’s happening in town where and when. Having that, he said, is an important competitive advantage over other cities.

Chat throughout the event was active, questions and answers were frequent, and networking lounge time was popular.

Save the Date for our next Mobility & Innovation Summit—June 29–30, 2021. Registration opens this April. ◆

Thank You to Our Sponsors Premier Sponsor

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PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 39

Feature 3 OPINION

Structural Marginalization and Parking and Mobility Think marginalization isn’t part of our industry?

One professional did the research and thought again.

By Shawn M. Compton, CAPP

W

E ARE CURRENTLY LIVING IN A CLIMATE where racial disparities

are being highlighted by the day. These issues have led me to a personal exploration of how my life and my profession may fit into ongoing conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion. How do systems and processes within the parking and mobility industry affect and possibly contribute to the uneven distribution of opportunities or services for certain segments of our population?

This article is not intended to be political in any way.

Like parking and mobility itself, it is completely apolitical (for the purposes of this article. I assume they are market-based commodities). There are many systems and processes that cause the goods and services to be unequally distributed to some populations, otherwise referred to as the marginalized. Although outwardly innocuous in the delivery of its services, the parking and mobility industry is not immune to this phenomenon.

Some self-disclosure is necessary: I identify as a white male but was raised in a blended, or mixed-race family, by an African American stepfather and with an African American stepsister, both of whom are considered in all respects my nuclear family. I also have a 6-year-old African American daughter adopted at birth. I have seen firsthand the effects of marginalization on my family and friends through the years. I have personally been affected by explicit racism and implicit marginalization, so I acknowledge both exist in real life, in real time.

To achieve objectivity, I began searching for terminology I could employ that would reveal my purpose without putting people on defense. I settled on the idea of what John A. Powell describes as “structural marginalization” rather than “structural racism.” As Powell explains, “racism invites the search for a racist actor,” where marginalization “implies a process or set of processes that may or may not be animated by conscious forces.” My instincts as a manager of people and my roots as a parking operator led me to one universal element that relates to current parking and mobility processes and systems: employing people.

Employment in Parking and Mobility As in all industries, employing people is a primary function of the parking and mobility industry. Parking and mobility employs people in a wide range of different roles. From cashier to CEO, maintenance to human resources, the list of roles within our industry is extensive. Like some other industries, parking and mobility does not fit neatly into one specific group. I think we

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can all share the experience of endlessly searching for the box on the form that accurately describes our industry. Many of us are relegated to the “other” category more than we would like. In fact, as many of you know, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) fails to list parking and mobility as a distinct industry in the North American Classification System (NAICS). This makes it nearly impossible to get accurate statistics for employment in the industry as a whole.

I have personally been affected by explicit racism and implicit marginalization, so I acknowledge both exist in real life, in real time.

The Front Line To focus my analysis of employment in the parking and mobility industry, I settled on a position with actual data available from the BLS. The BLS includes the occupation of parking attendant in the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), under Transportation and Material Moving Occupations. I was searching for a sample population within the industry that was prone to marginalization, specifically lower-wage employees.

Lower-wage employees are more prone to marginalization for any number of factors, education being the most prevalent, but there are 20 million people in the labor force with a high school diploma or less.

According to IBISWorld, there are currently 150,014 people employed in the parking industry (there is no statistic for the combined category of parking and mobility); the BLS estimates 147,390 people are employed as parking attendants in the U.S. There is one other industry listed in the profile for parking attendants: “Other Personal Services.” According to the BLS there are 84,770 people employed in this segment. If we parse out the total number of employees estimated by IBISWorld and those employed as

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STRUCTURAL MARGINALIZATION AND PARKING AND MOBILITY

parking attendants in Other Personal Services, we can assume that roughly 60 percent of the people employed in the industry are considered parking attendants. We may call these people by different titles such as cashier or ambassador, but the key distinction is these are all frontline employees, usually entry level, and usually on the lower end of the wage scale.

The Numbers According to the BLS 50.3 percent of those employed as parking attendants are Black/African American or Hispanic/Latino (19.3 percent and 31 percent respectively).

In comparison, these groups only make up 30 percent of the total labor force in the U.S. (12.3 percent and 17.6 percent respectively). This is an encouraging statistic for the industry as we are employing people of color at a much higher rate than the overall labor market. We may be inclined to view this a net positive impact on communities of color, but let’s take a closer look.

The median annual wage for a parking attendant is $26,450. The U.S. median annual wage is $33,870—a 32 percent variance. With these statistics. we can surmise that we are employing people of color at a higher rate for lower wages. This begs the question: Aren’t white parking attendants making less as well? Well, perhaps.

Whites make up 65 percent of the total labor force but only 49 percent of the sample (parking attendants).

Additionally, white Americans earn about 25 percent more than non-white in the overall labor force. A better question might be, as an industry are we paying nonwhite employees at the same rate as white employees?

Compensation is based on a number of factors related to an employee’s job description, including education level, experience, in-demand skill sets, and the benefit to a company of offering competitive salaries.

Structural marginalization in education is a robust area of study. According to the U.S. Department of Education, non-whites account for 60 percent of all high school dropouts. Additionally, Black and Hispanic/ Latinos are more likely to receive a GED than graduate from traditional high school.

Are we balancing education level against other factors, such as experience, on-demand skill, and benefit to our industry of offering competitive salaries? Do we place more emphasis on the type of education—say diploma over GED or traditional college programming over online programming? Are alternative educational achievements such as GED or online programming given less weight than more traditional ones? Just because someone had the opportunity to get a traditional

education does not automatically mean they are worth more; if we subscribe to this way of thinking, we lose focus on the true value of our employees and the depth of diversity in our labor force.

Consider the employee with years of onthe-job experience or, better yet, consider the possibility of losing a potential superstar to another company because they offer more competitive salaries. Robert Reich writes, “The ‘paid-what-you’re-worth’ argument is fundamentally misleading because it ignores power, overlooks institutions, and disregards politics. As such, it lures the unsuspecting into thinking nothing whatever should be done to change what people are paid, because nothing can be done.” However, something can be done.

We are employing people of color at a much higher rate than the overall labor market. We may be inclined to view this a net positive impact on communities of color, but let’s take a closer look.

As I stated. the parking attendant is likely an entry level position for most companies. Entry level positions are afforded the lowest wage consideration as these positions require the least amount of education and training.

We must be cognizant of the fact that as an industry, we are hiring non-white employees at a much higher rate for lower wages than the national average for all industries.

Low-wage work is often used as a springboard for opportunity, but the reality of low wage workers today is these jobs are critical to covering basic expenses. Being “stuck” in a low wage job creates a situation where opportunity is hard to come by; if a person is working simply to survive, it becomes nearly impossible to improve their situation.

Structural marginalization tells us that “certain systems and processes unevenly distribute opportunity or depress life chances along the axis of race.” In this case, the system is employment and process is compensation.

What Can We Do? I have worked for entities that justified low wages based on longstanding policies and procedures related to compensation. Whether it was a range, a bracket, or a band, everyone fit neatly into a structure based on position, job type, function, etc., and they usually

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The parking and mobility industry is not a likely source for resolving inequality in education, reforming the criminal justice system, or improving the delivery of healthcare service to marginalized communities, but we can look at the people in front of us every day and improve their chances for opportunity. included multiple steps and pay grades.

Compensation structures are positive overall as they provide organization and accountability in the process of hiring.

However, these structures must be applied consistently and should offer some level of flexibility when it comes to wage adjustment.

As we look back on the numbers related to wage levels for parking attendants and the application, might we consider taking a look at our own labor costing to see if, in fact, there is a discrepancy between wages for non-whites versus whites? If so, is this truly a result of our policies and procedures related to compensation? A few comparisons may bear out discrepancies between groups such as starting wages, increases, and advancement.

Are there other factors that explain the discrepancy such as education, experience, or performance?

A colleague recently conducted an analysis of labor costing by race and she discovered that her company was paying non-white employees an average of 16 percent less than their white counterparts. On average, non-white employees were hired at the lowest pay grade for specific positions while their white counterparts were hired in the middle to upper pay grades. As she dug further into the depths of employee file history, she discovered many cases in which the non-white and white employee were hired with the same or similar education and experience but with different pay rates, and some employees were hired at higher levels based on education. Both white and non-white employees with GEDs were onboarded at a lower level than those with traditional high school diplomas. When she inquired about this she was informed that the previous hiring manager made a judgment call based on the fact that a traditional high school education displayed more personal commitment than a GED—a distinction that directly impacted non-whites significantly more than whites (remember the statistic related to GED earlier?).

This created a further ripple effect in the employees’ compensation as merit increases and wage

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adjustments over the years were based on that low starting wage calculation. My colleague corrected the inconsistency by immediately raising those employees who were adversely affected by the process, thereby providing opportunity.

My colleague’s experience is a great illustration of how we can identify our role in marginalizing certain groups, accept where we are now in the process and act to correct any inequalities. It is no secret that nonwhites make less than whites and that women make less than men. Structures and processes throughout our society perpetuate this reality.

Education, number of earners in a household, and experience in the workforce all contribute to holding people back. What everyone can agree to is that gainful employment should not simply mean survival and that paying people what they are worth loses sight of the humanity that should be at the forefront of our hiring process. Employees should have opportunity to improve their lives with their earnings. We, individually and as an industry, should take a hard look at how we are making that happen for our employees. We should look at the level of wage equality in our respective organizations and not be afraid to elevate those who are already facing uneven distribution of opportunity.

The parking and mobility industry is not a likely source for resolving inequality in education, reforming the criminal justice system, or improving the delivery of healthcare service to marginalized communities, but we can look at the people in front of us every day and improve their chances for opportunity. We can look at our hiring processes and pay structures and make sure everyone is treated equally. The best way to ensure equality in our industry is to scrutinize our own systems and processes. I challenge each of us to take a critical look at our role in marginalizing communities of color and beyond. ◆ SHAWN M. COMPTON, CAPP, is regional manager at Park Place. He can be reached at scompton@parkplaceparking.com.

PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 43

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Highlights from the IPMI Blog

Going Frictionless: The Modernization of the Parking Landscape

By Nick Mazzenga, PE Believe it or not, the parking industry was ahead of the curve when it came to the transition to a more frictionless environment using contactless technologies. COVID-19 only added fuel to the fire to accelerate more widespread adoption of frictionlessenabling technologies. The parking technology industry was ready and poised for just such an event, and it responded very well. A frictionless parking experience, though, is in the eye of the beholder, and not every parking system needs to be–or should be–completely frictionless; there is a time and place for everything. The technology benefits and upfront costs are considerations that can help determine the appropriate application of frictionless parking applications.

As traditional parking demands change, so do the systems used to enforce parking management.

Capitalizing on technological advancements and addressing all vendor and user types, a frictionless parking system minimizes shared user interaction by using equipment and devices to initiate or end a parking session automatically. Drivers can access a facility or on-street curbside parking space by way of license plate readers, AVI/RFID, bar codes, or QR codes, Bluetooth, or other identification enabling technology.

Compared with traditional parking systems, a frictionless parking system may require significant

upfront design and infrastructure costs to make everything work seamlessly for the user. Amazon and other online retailers have done much to make our online shopping experience as frictionless as possible– but for all that friction that is removed from our end, there is a commensurate level of friction that occurs behind the scenes to make our shopping experience as seamless or frictionless as possible.

With the possibility of more efficient curb and parking space management, smoother parking operations, and an overall enhanced user experience, frictionless parking not only modernizes our parking landscape, but also facilitates convenience for an often-cumbersome process.

NICK MAZZENGA, PE, is an associate with Kimley-Horn

Ready for more? Read IPMI’s blog every business day in your daily Forum digest email (10 a.m. Eastern) or at parking-mobility.org/blog.

Have something to say? Send post submissions to editor Kim Fernandez at fernandez@parking-mobility.org.

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Breaking Down Parking and Mobility Silos

By Laurens Eckelboom While the parking industry has always been consumer-driven, there’s little doubt that the consumers in question want more.

Consider the parker: The same person who can receive online goods and groceries in a matter of days, even hours. They can instantly stream movies, TV shows, podcasts, and music into their homes, cars, and mobile phones. They can shortlist potential romantic partners in real time with a simple swipe right. Should it be any surprise that they want to safely park at a convenient location for the best price available to them? Of course, they do. But as service providers, are we there yet?

Before the pandemic disrupted operations, the parking industry was already undergoing an era of drastic change.

Technology providers, parking reservation platforms, location services, and more were starting to—lot by lot, space by space— rethink the parking experience as part of the overall customer journey. Multiple parties separately solved a part of the process, making it savvier and more convenient. As we soon move towards operations in a post-pandemic environment, a sum of independent solutions will likely not meet our customers’

demands for today, and much less their desires for tomorrow.

The renowned Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst, Vaclav Smil, said, “Collaboration and augmentation are the foundational principles of innovation.” Imagine what we could achieve if we, as an industry, collectively ideated and innovated with a broad bevy of perspectives, resources, and data at our disposal. Our diversity in experience paired with an alignment in vision would not only lead to measurable progress, but it would also assert our ability to thrive.

LAURENS ECKELBOOM is ParkHub’s chief revenue officer.

IPMI Responding to the MUTCD Comment Period

By Shawn Conrad, CAE A big thank you to Benito Pérez, CAPP, from DDOT for Tuesday’s reminder of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) comment period for input on the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) national standard. The FHWA is seeking updates/improvements to the MUTCD standard,

which governs all traffic devices on all public roads. It affects all municipalities and is intended to bring uniformity to traffic control devices in communities across the U.S. While we encourage every organization to submit your comments directly to FHWA, we also invite you to be part of an IPMI industry-wide response and send your feedback to us as well. IPMI volunteer-led committees and working groups are compiling comments to submit on behalf of the industry by the May 14, 2021 deadline. To include your thoughts in our united effort, please email us.

Parking and mobility programs are directly affected by the MUTCD and it’s important FHWA hears from those managing and enforcing curb space. A visible presence and voice for the industry is just one of IPMI’s strengths, but a vital one. We look forward to working with you and advancing this industry effort together.

SHAWN CONRAD, CAE, is IPMI’s CEO.

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/ TimHaahs—Now THA Consulting TIMOTHY HAAHS & ASSOCIATES (TimHaahs)—a multi-disciplined engineering, architectural, and mobility consulting firm specializing in parking and mixed-use facilities—announced the transition to a new leadership team and a company-wide rebranding as THA Consulting, Inc. (THA). The firm’s international and national portfolio includes thousands of projects in which it has provided planning, design, engineering, consulting, and restoration services related to parking and mixed-use facilities.

The new leadership team of THA Consulting features industry veterans with extensive experience on a wide range of projects for the firm’s clients. Chief Executive Officer Todd J. Helmer, PE, who has been with the firm for 25 years, will be responsible for the company’s overall vision and strategic direction, client relationships, business management and financial management performance, and overall corporate operations. President James M. Zullo, CAPP, AICP, will oversee business development, marketing, and study services. Zullo, who has been with the company for 13 years and managed its New Jersey operations, will continue to serve as section leader for transit-oriented development.

As part of the leadership changes Janice Haahs, MBA, who has served as the firm’s Chief Financial Officer for 26 years, will also assume the role of Chief Administrative Officer. In that capacity, she will supervise and manage the daily operations of the company.

These leadership changes—and the rebranding—follow the December retirement of Timothy Haahs, the company’s founder, president, and CEO. “Our team members have always placed a strong emphasis on understanding the specific needs and goals of each of our clients,” says Helmer. “This rebranding reflects the evolution and growth of our firm, as well as our continued commitment to delivering creative, innovative parking solutions while providing exceptional client services. Our experienced team at THA Consulting makes us uniquely positioned to continue to serve our clients through the transformative

Helmer Zullo

changes and increased focus on sustainability that are reshaping the industry. We are all excited for what the future holds for our firm.”

As part of its rebranding, the company is transitioning to a new website, tha-consulting.com, adopting a new logo, and making changes to its social media channels.

“The expertise of our management team has been honed through extensive hands-on experience tackling unique and complex issues associated with parking and mixed-use facilities, and through a commitment to client service and responsiveness,” says Zullo.

“While our company’s name is changing, we are the same dedicated team of professionals with extensive experience in the unique and complex issues associated with parking planning, consulting, and the design of parking and mixed-use facilities.”

Founded in 1994, THA Consulting is headquartered in suburban Philadelphia in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania.

The firm also has regional offices in Atlanta, Ga.; New Brunswick, N.J.; and Miami, Fla. THA has played a vital role in planning and developing stand-alone and integrated parking facilities for a diverse range of transformative, award-winning parking and mixeduse projects for clients in the corporate, government, healthcare, higher education, development/construction, and transit sectors.

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/ ParkMobile Launches New Mobile Web App for Contactless Parking Payments

PARKMOBILE launched a new web app enabling users to quickly pay for parking in a mobile web browser. This web app is another way ParkMobile provides more options for people who prefer to make a contactless parking payment but do not want to download a full-featured mobile app.

This news comes on the heels of the December announcement that ParkMobile payments can also be made in the new Google Pay app.

A user can access the new ParkMobile web app by visiting parkmobile.io and touching “Enter Zone Number.” The app can also be opened by scanning the QR code posted on a ParkMobile sign or texting “PARK” to 77223. Once in the mobile web app, the user enters the zone number posted on the signs around the space, chooses the duration, and touches the “start parking” button.

Current users of the ParkMobile app for iOS or Android can use their same account credentials to log in to the web app. Additionally, the web app will be introducing a guest checkout option in the coming months, allowing users to pay for parking without creating an account.

“Contactless payment options are an important way to fight COVID-19,” says Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber. “The ParkMobile web app is a great new tool that will give our residents and visitors more ways to enjoy our community safely.”

“We are always listening to our users, and we’ve found that some people prefer a lightweight web app to the full-featured Android or iOS app,” says Jon Ziglar, CEO of ParkMobile. “Our new web app makes it quick and easy to pay for parking in a mobile web browser and will help increase the adoption of contactless payments in cities across the country.”

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Toledo Ticket Technologies and Oobeo, Inc. Announce Acquisition TOLEDO TICKET TECHNOLOGIES is pleased to announce its acquisition of Oobeo, Inc., a parking technology company specializing in valet management solutions and web-based contactless payment systems. The move further enhances and grows Toledo Ticket’s evolving product portfolio and technology-based solutions.

Dave Dorner, EVP Toledo Ticket, has assumed new responsibility as president of Oobeo, Inc. Dorner saus, “The acquisition of Oobeo is another step in Toledo Ticket’s strategic plan to provide additional technologies for secure access across the parking and event ticketing industries.”

Oobeo offers cloud-based software that streamlines parking operations through web, mobile and SMS technology.

Oobeo’s technology enables clients in industries including hospitality, education and healthcare, across the U.S., to deliver unparalleled customer satisfaction and access through valet management and ticketing services.

“We are excited to welcome Oobeo to the Toledo Ticket Technologies team. Their products are the best available and deliver an unmatched user experience. Couple that with employees dedicated to providing customers with the highest quality of service and most advanced software, Oobeo is the perfect partner for us,” says Tom Carter, president and chief executive officer, Toledo Ticket Technologies. “For more than 110 years, Toledo Ticket has prided itself in understanding the challenges our customers face and how we can help them achieve their goals. The acquisition of Oobeo reinforces our commitment to providing our customers with the most technologically advanced solutions to their ticketing and parking management challenges.

Unlike other options available, Oobeo’s technology works via text messaging so customers do not need to download an app to utilize these services. Oobeo offers three different parking platform solutions for parking operators: valet parking management, pay by space (self-parking) and permit management. The technology offers an efficient and economical operating platform for operators, property owners, colleges, and municipalities and a seamless experience for their customers.

“Toledo Ticket Technologies is the perfect fit for Oobeo.

With its stellar reputation, credibility and access, it is a natural fit for us and allows Oobeo to continue to grow our footprint and technology solutions,” says Tom Bexx, Director of Product Development, Oobeo.

Watry Design, Inc. Promotes Key Staff to Principals and Director WATRY DESIGN, INC. is pleased to announce the promotions of four associate principals to Principal and one associate director to director.

The firm aspires to recognize those who go above and beyond and these long-time employees have served as exemplary examples of our company’s core values.

Derek Beaudoin, SE, Principal, started his career with Watry Design in 2003 and is licensed in 4 states. He has extensive experience in parking structure design and renovation. He has led high profile parking projects for clients such as Facebook and Marin General Hospital and is currently working to enhance the passenger experience for Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal modernization multimodal complex. Derek’s tireless efforts ensure that parking is something everyone is proud of.

Hannah Brooks, Principal, Business Development & Marketing, who joined the firm in 2005 to champion firm growth, leads marketing and business development utilizing skills from a career that began in 1990. Her content-rich, integrated marketing and business development strategies have significantly grown the firm’s overall market presence, provided a platform for Watry Design’s parking experts and contributed to strategic project wins in new and existing markets.

Matt Davis, Principal, who started his career with Watry Design in 2002, is dedicated to sustainable and innovative parking design. Working tirelessly to design parking that meets clients’ specific needs, he has led the design of parking solutions for transit authorities such as Sound Transit and Foothill Gold Line, as well as developed innovative solutions for clients such as the University of California San Diego.

Michael Pendergrass, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, DBIA, Principal, is licensed in 8 states. He began his parking design career in 2002 and joined Watry Design in 2013. A powerful advocate for well-integrated parking, Michael collaborates extensively with stakeholders to gain consensus and ensure parking solutions achieve their vision. From leading landmark parking projects for airports such as Los Angeles International and San Diego International, to enhancing the campus experience at University of California, Irvine, he is dedicated to making his clients look good.

Francisco Navarro, Director of Building Information Modeling (BIM), Parksmart Advisor, who started his career with Watry Design in 1998, leads the firm’s continuing advancement of BIM Technology to deliver parking solutions specifically tailored to a project’s needs. Through his commitment to innovation, our integrated architects, structural engineers and parking planners are able to provide unparalleled collaborative solutions for our clients. In addition to his Director of BIM responsibilities, Francisco leads parking projects for clients such as the University of Nevada Reno and the County of San Mateo.

Sarasota, Fla., Offers New Permit Program Using RFID Technology THE CITY OF SARASOTA Parking Management program is now offering a faster and easier way to park. Like the toll road pass system, Breezy Pass will make getting in and out of the city’s parking garages faster, easier, and touch free! The new system will improve accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

It also provides a faster, contactless entry and exit program for employee parking. For the first time, the city is also encouraging the general public to purchase the Breezy Pass to improve parking access at all the city’s award-winning parking facilities.

Using the Breezy Pass simplifies the payment process and

reduces time to find parking. Commonly referred to as a permit, Breezy Pass will be provided and offer several operating features which vary by location.

Breezy Pass will be available for use in the Palm Avenue and State Street garages in Downtown, and the St. Armand’s parking garage. A pass can be purchased that is good for all three facilities, the downtown garages, or just St. Armand’s garage. Users will be able to pay a flat monthly rate or pay the actual parking fee via debit account maintained on file with the city.

PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 49

/ PARKING & MOBILITY CONSULTANTS WALKERCONSULTANTS.COM 800.860.1579

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50 PARKING & MOBILITY / MARCH 2021 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG

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PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 51

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Rich & Associates, Inc. ���������������������������51

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THE

PODCAST A podcast about parking, mobility, and the people who make it all go. Hosted by Isaiah Mouw with new episodes every other Tuesday at 10 a.m.

Eastern. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, SoundCloud or any other major podcast provider. parkingcast.com

Strategic Partner

52 PARKING & MOBILITY / MARCH 2021 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG

W W W . PARKING-MOBILITY. OR G

In Case You Missed It...

THE 2021 IPMI PARKING & MOBILITY CONFERENCE & EXPO

➚In-person! Nov. 29 – Dec. 2 at the J.W. Marriott Tampa Water Street, Tampa, Fla. general sessions, education sessions, Shoptalks, networking and community-building— ➚Expo, everything you love about the IPMI Conference. ➚Call for Presentations open now through March 15. ➚Preferred Exhibitor sales open March 15. ➚Attendee registration opens May 1 ➚Stay on top of all the details, sneak peeks, and plans by clicking here. We can’t wait to see you!

ON THE FORUM

➚Commercial loading zone occupancy rates. ➚Creating incentives to visit and park. ➚A creative, collaborative parking management initiative. ➚MUTCD comment period. ➚RFP examples and cost for parking study. ➚Join the conversation! forum.parking-mobility.org.

ON THE BLOG

➚Defining Our Industry’s Future, by Brett Wood, CAPP, PE ➚Breaking Down Parking and Mobility Silos, by Laurens Eckleboom. ➚IPMI Responding to the MUTCD Comment Period, by Shawn Conrad, CAE. ➚Going Frictionless: The Modernization of the Parking Landscape, by Nick Mazzenga, PE ➚No (Hu)Man is an Island, by Michael Back. posts every day in your morning Forum email, and submit your posts online—all IPMI ➚Read members are invited to write for the blog.

All from your desk, on your time, at parking-mobility.org.

PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG / MARCH 2021 / PARKING & MOBILITY 53