IPI’s panel of experts answer a question in every issue of The Parking Professional. Here are some additional tidbits from a recent question—click here to see answers from the magazine.

What’s your best strategy or tip for pricing parking for greatest efficiency and to balance availability and cost?

Dan Kupferman, CAPP
Director of Car Park Management Systems
Walker Parking Consultants
If you really want to balance availability and cost, base rates on reliable occupancy data from block to block or zone to zone during peak time periods. I like mobile license plate recognition (LPR) for efficient data collection. If you have free or inexpensive parking available on the quieter perimeter (but walkable to the core), you’ll get less pushback on “high” hourly rates in the busier core.

Mike Drow, CAPP
Consultant
Act, measure, adjust — you cannot expect to get it right the first time and what worked today may not work tomorrow. Effective pricing requires an entity to understand its market and its customer’s needs. This is done by experimenting with pricing to see the results via activity, measuring the results, and then implementing adjustments to the pricing based on what you learn.

David Taxman, PE
Associate
DESMAN
Parking should be priced to reflect the market and demand. It is beneficial to assess historical and existing utilization and revenue data and to benchmark the existing parking rates against the rates of other comparable facilities in the area. These analyses will provide insight on what rate structure and prices are appropriate to allow a facility to continue to be attractive and profitable and to help balance availability across the parking system.

Joseph Sciulli
Vice President and Senior Operations Consultant
CHANCE Management Advisors, Inc.
If we’re talking on-street meter prices, go by your indicators: a parking duration between 75 percent and 95 percent of the posted regulation, a violation rate on multi-space metered spaces from 3 percent to 5 percent, and at least a 33 percent violation capture rate. That should translate to no more than 93 percent occupancy in a downtown or at least one space available at all times per every two blockfaces.

James C. Anderson
Regional Sales Manager
Watson Bowman Acme Corp.
Through a broader user analysis and strategy, price your parking asset to obtain the desired objective. Price to influence the parking users’ actions.

Interested in being considered for a future experts panel? Email The Parking Professional Editor Kim Fernandez at fernandez@parking.org.