Tag Archives: cities

IPMI Blog, Resources

Micro-mobility, Parking, Data, and Your Operation: Looking Ahead

Leave a comment

A scooter parked on a sidewalk in a cityBy Nathan Donnell, CAPP

The micro-mobility movement has exploded around the globe in the last three to five years. Government agencies woke up to find e-scooters and bikes dropped onto sidewalks for the general public to use. For the most part, the public has embraced this new form of transportation. However, agencies have been challenged to find the balance between safety, sustainability, street clutter, and revenue generation.

If your agency is weighing different micro-mobility options, which one or ones do you choose? Have you figured out how many units to allow per vendor? Who’s responsible when the units are left in prohibited areas? How do you access the data from each vendor? Is the data valuable for your operations? What do you do with the data when you get your hands on it?

Various studies claim more than 60 percent of 0- to 5-mile trips are taken via micro-mobility options. This mode of transportation adds to the options from which the public can choose. It can even bridge gaps in areas where traditional transport modes may be lacking, such as government-run bus routes.

IPMI’s Technology Committee has scheduled a webinar that will discuss benefits, challenges, and questions to ask when agencies are approached by vendors. Mark March 18 on your calendar and click here to register.

Nathan Donnell, CAPP, is director, western U.S. and Canada sales, curbside management solutions, with Conduent, and a member of IPMI’s Technology Commmittee.

IPMI Blog, Resources

The Future of Fleets

Leave a comment

Cover of the January issue of Parking & Mobility magazineFleets of self-driving vehicles are about to become the norm. What does that mean for the parking and mobility industry? We’ll give you a hint: They’re driverless. Autonomous vehicles will change the fundamentals of the entire transportation landscape, and that includes fleets–and the way they interact with parking and mobility facilities and infrastructure.

Jesse Garcia, director, strategy and corporate development with ParkMobile, shares research and predictions for fleets and what upcoming changes will mean in the latest issue of Parking & Mobility, including who will own them, how they’ll operate, what they’ll mean for parking and mobility organizations (particularly in municipalities), and how to prepare for the disruption to come.

“There is much more to the autonomous fleets of the future than simply removing the need for a driver,” he writes. Read more here.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Making Better Decisions Daily

Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: The IPMI Blog is re-posting some of our biggest hits from 2019 through the holidays. New posts will resume on January 2.

By Brett Wood, CAPP, PE

As the parking and transportation demand management industries continue to intersect and become one, we are continually learning new ways to improve our business model and support more sustainable and efficient transportation ecosystems. One of the newer concepts taking hold is the idea of daily decision making for commuters. The idea is to provide commuters to a downtown or a college campus better information to manage their commute choices. If a commuter is armed with data relative to travel time, cost, and environmental impacts, they are more likely to make smarter decisions on mode choice.

One of the primary elements in this model is that the cost for parking has to be clearly defined and all subsidized decision points removed. This means fewer permits and more daily rates. Once a parker has paid for a month, semester, or year of parking, the decision to drive is almost set in concrete because they have absorbed that cost and it no longer factors into the decision. More and more, campuses and cities are removing the monthly parking option in favor of making drivers think more consciously about their mode choices. This singular change is more likely to change behavior than most other commute elements.

The second primary element is to organize commute information in a meaningful way so  drivers know the impacts of their daily decision. This should include comparable information between vehicular, transit, and mobility options, including:

  • Travel costs.
  • Travel time.
  • Environmental impacts.
  • Health benefits

As we create new methods to share this information, we are unlocking the ability to manage commute volume and improve congestion, pollution, and quality of life for commuters and residents alike. The move to create better daily choices is one that can likely help us shape the future of our cities and campuses in a meaningful way.

Brett Wood, CAPP, PE, is a parking and transportation planner with Kimley-Horn.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Scales of Justice: Rethinking Parking Fines

Leave a comment

parking fines, social, justiceBy Matt Darst and Michael Brown

On a recent trip, I counted more than a dozen illegally parked vehicles traveling from my quarters to a coffee shop just two blocks away. Despite street sweeping bans  in effect, a number of motorists decided to park illegally. I wondered why so many drivers would risk citations.

The average household income in this particular neighborhood is pretty high. Motorists likely reasoned that the risk of a citation was less than the opportunity cost of searching for legal parking someplace else.

Parking laws exist for a reason. Cities often establish fine values based on the specific social harm (affecting disabled people, exacerbating supply side problems, making it more difficult for others to park, etc.) a particular infraction creates and the need for deterrence. Generally, infractions fit in one of three categories:

  • Level 1: Violations that promote public safety and access for persons with disabilities. The most egregious infractions typically carry the highest fines.
  • Level 2: Citations that mitigate traffic. Less egregious, but important to mobility goals.
  • Level 3: Infractions that affect the quality of life. These are citations designed to promote general order and beautification and they’re the cheapest fines.

Just as the resultant social harm varies across violation types, the damage caused by illegal parking can vary by date, time, and location. A person who fails to pay a parking meter at 7 a.m. on a Monday when the spaces are only 10 percent occupied does not create the same social harm as someone who does it at 7 p.m. on a Friday when there’s no available parking. Cities often try to address this by creating zones with varying fine schedules, but that strategy fails to recognize the dramatic shifts in curbside utilization throughout a day.

Similar to the concept of curbside demand management employed by Washington, D.C., maybe cities should tie level 1 fines to occupancy, reducing the fees when demand is low and increasing penalties when demand is high.

We wonder if people in disadvantaged neighborhoods are as likely to ignore street sweeping restrictions as people in wealthier areas. If fines have a greater deterrent value in underserved communities, maybe cities should consider linking residential penalties such as street sweeping to the economics/demographics of each neighborhood. A sliding scale for fines and penalties tailored to the true social harm created by various infractions could have several benefits, including reducing congestion, improving the quality of life in neighborhoods, and improving revenue by redistributing the greatest penalties to those who either cause the most harm to society or fail to be deterred from parking in contravention of posted restrictions.

At the end of the day, all parking professionals strive to make the administration of the curb fairer. Rethinking fine structures could potentially deter illegal parking, reduce the comparative social harm, and help encourage social equity.

Matt Darst is senior director, parking and mobility, and Michael Brown is national director of collections, with Conduent.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Making Better Decisions Daily

Leave a comment

By Brett Wood, CAPP, PE

As the parking and transportation demand management industries continue to intersect and become one, we are continually learning new ways to improve our business model and support more sustainable and efficient transportation ecosystems. One of the newer concepts taking hold is the idea of daily decision making for commuters. The idea is to provide commuters to a downtown or a college campus better information to manage their commute choices. If a commuter is armed with data relative to travel time, cost, and environmental impacts, they are more likely to make smarter decisions on mode choice.

One of the primary elements in this model is that the cost for parking has to be clearly defined and all subsidized decision points removed. This means fewer permits and more daily rates. Once a parker has paid for a month, semester, or year of parking, the decision to drive is almost set in concrete because they have absorbed that cost and it no longer factors into the decision. More and more, campuses and cities are removing the monthly parking option in favor of making drivers think more consciously about their mode choices. This singular change is more likely to change behavior than most other commute elements.

The second primary element is to organize commute information in a meaningful way so  drivers know the impacts of their daily decision. This should include comparable information between vehicular, transit, and mobility options, including:

  • Travel costs.
  • Travel time.
  • Environmental impacts.
  • Health benefits

As we create new methods to share this information, we are unlocking the ability to manage commute volume and improve congestion, pollution, and quality of life for commuters and residents alike. The move to create better daily choices is one that can likely help us shape the future of our cities and campuses in a meaningful way.

Brett Wood, CAPP, PE, is a parking and transportation planner with Kimley-Horn.

IPMI Blog, Resources

A Different Fee Structure for E-scooters to Solve Curb Clutter

Leave a comment

By Nathan Donnell

We live and die by supply and demand in the parking and mobility industry. We are challenged by the public, stakeholders, and business owners to have enough parking  while keeping the price at a reasonable level so as to not deter people from using the curb space. Obviously, I just defined supply and demand! I apologize for the elementary schooling but I have a method to my madness.

I spent a few days in three of the top 15 cities in the United States recently and because I’m a mobility geek, I couldn’t help but focus on the overall curb management in each city. The one thing all three cities had in common was that the supply and demand theory of micro-mobility vendors was way off. In one city, there were seven e-scooter vendors, each fighting for space on the curb. There wasn’t a street I walked down where I couldn’t find an e-scooter to ride. In fact, there was on an average of 20 scooters on each side of the street throughout each city, waiting for potential riders.

Cities and campuses have more control over micro-mobility vendors [vs. ride sharing as an example] by licensing each e-scooter and charging fees per ride; they also have access to data that should help make better policy decisions. Unfortunately, the supply outweighed the demand in all three cities to the point of cluttering the walkways and making it difficult to navigate without tripping hazards.

Why not charge each vendor a fee per scooter for the time it’s taking up curb space instead of a flat fee or per-ride fee? This may cause scooter vendors to be more selective in the number of scooters they drop off in hopes of getting more customers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for first- and last-mile mobility solutions. But we must find the sweet spot of supply and demand or all we’ve done is create another problem in our cities and on our campuses.

Nathan Donnell is director, western U.S. and Canada sales, curbside management solutions with Conduent.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Less Parking or More? City Planners on What AVs Mean for Them

Leave a comment

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will reduce the demand for parking in cities. Or they might increase it, depending. Same for the need for driving lanes, which affect the availability of bike lanes and pedestrian pathways. They might make cities more–or less–walkable, too.

The debate over driverless continued this weekend with a Washington Post dive into what AVs might mean for cities. The news outlet asked city planners what they thought the advent of driverless cars will mean for them, and the answers varied widely. Much of the ambiguity stems from the way we’ll use driverless vehicles (Will we share or own our own?), which will depend on pricing, attitudes, fuel, and a host of yet-unknown factors. One thing is clear: Driverless cars will definitely change the way we get around, and that will change the way our cities operate.

Read the whole story here and talk about it on Forum–how will AVs change your city?

IPMI Blog, Resources

Is FOMO Hurting Mobility Policy?

Leave a comment

mobility, parking, FOMO, policy, CityLabAre cities quick to adopt new transportation technology (autonomous vehicles, for one) because of a fear of missing out or desire to make headlines for being first, without considering the long-term implications of what they’re doing? At least one analyst believes so, and he’s writing about it.

David Zipper, fellow at the German Marshall Fund, writes on CityLab that a fear of missing out–FOMO–is driving some mobility decisions, potentially actually setting back good policy in favor of splashy headlines. “More likely than not, your elected officials are basing mobility policy decisions not on cost-benefit analysis or strategic foresight, but on a classic modern insecurity: FOMO,” he writes.

“The problem with these projects is that they are the policy equivalent of Instagram glamour shots, crafted to elicit admiration and envy rather than improve lives,” he continues. Read the whole article here and let us know on Forum–is FOMO damaging good mobility policy?

IPMI Blog, Resources

Ford, Cities Partner on the Future of Mobility

Leave a comment

Ford Motor Company’s in-house futurist has started in-depth meetings with U.S. city leaders to try and forecast how shared, autonomous vehicles might affect daily life and what infrastructure, regulations, and other things need to be put into place before widespread adoption. A few highlights from a Washington Post story on the effort:

  • “‘Somewhere along the way, we had the obvious, but latent, idea that we need to build cars that people want. I think cities have the same thing,’ [Ford Futurist Sheryl] Connelly said, adding that urban planning has become one of the world’s most influential jobs.”
  • “Ford will begin testing self-driving vehicles in the District early this year, with plans to launch them commercially in Washington, Miami and other cities in 2021. Waymo began rolling out a commercial robo-taxi service in suburban Phoenix in early December, and autonomous shuttles are coming to cities from Youngstown, Ohio, to Jacksonville, Fla.”
  • “As District [of Columbia] officials put it, they don’t want to be stuck ‘making 100-year decisions for technology that is changing in 10 years.'”
  • “More recently, the company shifted toward a strategy of not only selling cars, but moving people. Ford is making a five-year, $1 billion investment in the self-driving start-up Argo AI to help build the foundation for autonomous ride-sharing and delivery businesses, and it is growing its shared-van service, Chariot.”

  • “Self-driving vehicles are just one piece of the bigger picture facing cities, as they try to balance immediate concerns with futuristic ones. That means fixing roads and bridges and finding ways to slow drivers at dangerous intersections, while also focusing on what infrastructure might be needed for the future and what information should be collected and shared as roads, and the people on them, are tied together through digital networks.”

A big priority, the article says, is designing systems and structures that can change very quickly, either with the technology itself or if what experts predict now ends up not being reality.

Read the whole article here.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Economic Development, Women, and Parking

Leave a comment

By David Feehan

I have the opportunity to give an Ignite presentation at the annual conference of the International Economic Development Council in Atlanta. Ignite presentations are like mini-TED talks. IEDC is to economic developers what IPI is to parking professionals and what the International Downtown Association (which I used to lead) is to downtown professionals.

The subject of my presentation is based on a new book I co-authored, “Design Downtown for Women – Men Will Follow.” As I prepared my presentation, I thought about my audience, and how the world of parking and the world of economic development (and for that matter, downtown development) are closely interlinked.

I can’t count the number of times I was recruiting a business for a downtown location when the first question I was asked was, “Where will my employees or my customers park?” If I could not provide a satisfactory answer, I knew I could not close the deal.

So, in this age of ride sharing and autonomous vehicles, what are parking professionals supposed to do to support economic development?

First, parking professionals should educate themselves about how economic development professionals do what they do. Parking is not just a matter of supply and demand, building well-constructed and well-designed parking facilities, or managing enforcement programs. Parking professionals need to understand how business leaders think when they are looking for locations. What are the most important issues site selectors have to deal with? For most businesses, the most important issue is: can I attract the talent I need to grow and run my business? And that means providing safe, convenient access for current and potential employees.

In terms of customers and employees, when we were doing the research for our book, we surveyed more than 100 women business leaders. What they told us was that the most hated thing about coming downtown was parking. As parking professionals, we need to understand why this is so, and do everything that we can to correct it.

Women are the most important demographic for any successful business. Women make up 60 percent of college graduates and control more than 50 percent of the private wealth in the U.S. If you are concerned about running a successful parking operation that supports economic development, ignore women at your peril.

David Feehan is president of Civitas Consulting, LLC.