A friend of mine from the U.K. parking fraternity was recently asked to create a presentation on the topic of “Parking: A Matter of Choice or Convenience?” Among the areas he would be looking at was why, given a choice, would anyone actively choose to park in your car park? He called me as he knew that I regularly looked through our survey responses/customer feedback and perhaps I might be able supply some useful anecdotes and sound bites.
So I embarked on my fact-finding mission and began to dig deep into our parking data … luckily for me, he only needed U.K. stats! What I found surprised me.
When it comes to parking, the most commonly asked question is about how much it will cost, with an overwhelming 80 percent of all motorists using our site requesting this information when booking a parking space.
The next most frequently asked question when booking a parking spot is, perhaps unsurprisingly, about the exact address and zipcode, with 70 percent of motorists wanting this information to enter into navigating devices.
My research also revealed the top 10 most requested cities when it comes to motorists looking for somewhere to park, and perhaps rather surprisingly, it’s not the capital (London) in first place! The North of the U.K. leads the top of the chart with Leeds as the most popular request, followed closely by York, with Birmingham, Manchester and Brighton rounding out the top five. In fact, London ranked sixth for most requested cities!
Top 10 Parking Requests, 2014-2015
- Price.
- Zipcode.
- Opening hours.
- Height restrictions.
- Safety info ( e.g. does it have CCTV, is it secure etc).
- Toilets.
- Handicapped parking info.
- Parent and child spaces.
- Motorcycle spaces.
- Payment info (coins, credit cards, pay by mobile).
On a lighter note, I also stumbled across the following data:
- One-third of U.K. drivers forget where their cars were parked. And it appears to be a battle of the sexes: 24 percent of men and 32 percent of women admit to not knowing where their cars were left.
- Motorists living in Wales may have some of the best driving roads around but have the worst luck remembering where they’ve left their cars—nearly 40 percent say they had trouble finding their cars in a car park.
- On the opposite end of the spectrum, motorists in London reported the least trouble, with only 18 percent having forgotten where they left their cars.
- When it comes to age, motorists age 55-64 were most likely to forget where they had parked, their car followed by 18-24 year-olds.
I wonder how the Brits compare to the other parkers around the world.