That’s me. A kid in a candy store this week as I began what I consider total fun—pouring over the results of IPI’s Emerging Trends in Parking Survey and beginning to crunch the numbers, while looking out my window here in D.C. at the sno-caps, even though the calendar says March.

As in past years, IPI members and the parking community really came through—a whopper of a response—and the high numbers make this survey meaningful and projectable, offering a pay day of valuable insights and information. Kudos and a kiss to the entire Parking Matters® Committee (but particularly co-chairs Cindy Campbell and Casey Jones, CAPP, along with Vanesssa Solesbee—the three musketeers on this project) for reshaping the survey this year and adding some new questions about parking minimums and placard abuse.

Can you guess how many of your colleagues would recommend parking as a career to those currently in high school or college? I can’t share exact percentages yet, but suffice it to say, good ‘n plenty!

Special thanks to Todd Litman, executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, who was a lifesaver for allowing us to use his materials for a series of questions on transportation demand management (TDM). The responses to the TDM questions validate just how much more than parking parking folks deal with!

We kept a few questions from past surveys that deal with emerging trends so we can measure changes over time, but it’s the new questions on the survey  that are out of this milky way and will make you look like a smartie.

Beyond analyzing results of the survey as a whole and trying to connect all the dots, we also slice and dice the information by sector. How do parking professionals at airports, for instance, differ from those at cities or universities in how they see societal trends that are influencing parking?

I’m not the ultimate cracker jack marketing researcher, so the IPI survey is also being analyzed, as in the past, by Maria Ivancin of the Washington, D.C.-based Market Research Bureau.

When the results are published and shared in conjunction with the 2015 IPI Conference & Expo in Las Vegas, we’ll all have a lot to chew on!

While we are be-twix-ed and between the close of the survey and the publication of the results in June, you are welcome to view a past survey here.

P.S. Are you snicker-ing, yet? The first person who sends me an email with the correct number of candy brands mentioned in this blog, will receive one item of his or her choice from the IPI store, at ShopIPI. Write to me at sullivan@parking.org.