Policy

COMING SOON: A Guide to Implementing Paid Parking provides a practical, step-by-step roadmap for planners, parking professionals, consultants, elected officials, and community leaders.

COMING SOON: Inclusive Streetscapes challenges practitioners and decision-makers to rethink how streets are planned, designed, built, operated, and maintained. Drawing on transportation practice and the perspectives of people with disabilities, this framework examines common streetscape elements through the lenses of accessibility, safety, usability, and human experience.

COMING SOON: A practical guide to understanding how parking operations really work—where revenue can be lost and how auditors, operators, owners, and public agencies can identify risks before they become bigger problems.

Municipal Parking Services (MPS) today praised LivableStreets Alliance for publishing its 2026 Vision Zero Progress Report, a thoughtful, data-driven assessment of a decade of work to reduce serious and fatal crashes in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville. The report concludes that sustained Vision Zero commitments produce meaningful results and recognizes Somerville as a national leader after three consecutive years without a fatal crash and a 50% decrease in serious injury crashes in 2025. Its findings and recommendations provide a valuable resource for communities working to make streets safer for everyone.

Parking enforcement has a perception problem, and according to Passport’s 2025 Parking Compliance Trends Report, 72% of compliance challenges stem from human factors rather than technology. That means the biggest obstacle between parking programs and their goals isn’t the tools -- it’s the relationship between enforcement and the public.

Parking professionals operate at the intersection of policy, technology, and public expectations, yet one challenge continues to surface across the industry: when outcomes fall short, the blame often falls on frontline employees, even when the issue lies with the system itself.

In every parking operation, there is a subtle but essential choreography unfolding each day—the work of customer service representatives. These professionals perform a delicate dance between policy and empathy, structure and flexibility, enforcement and understanding.

Quality parking data has become essential for improving driver experience, enabling wayfinding, informing policy, and ensuring efficient operations. Even helping drivers find available parking requires reliable, real-time data. As cities and parking operators face growing pressure to manage curb space, optimize revenue, and support broader mobility goals, the focus has shifted from whether to use data to what type of data is needed.

This webinar, presented by Nick Mazenga and Carmen Donnell, co-chairs of IPMI’s Technology Committee, explored global parking enforcement technologies and their potential use in North America. The presenters examined international examples including Amsterdam, Rome, the United Arab Emirates, Adelaide, China, and Bogotá, highlighting approaches such as tax-based parking, SMS-first enforcement, sensor systems, valet robots, and behavioral science techniques. While many of these technologies are feasible in North America, the discussion emphasized that cultural, legal, and governance differences present major challenges. The presenters concluded that staffing, public trust, and governance are often bigger barriers than the technology itself and encouraged organizations to focus on compliance-first strategies, pilot programs, and locally tailored solutions.

This Learning Lab breaks down what it takes to upgrade to a Ticket-by-Mail parking enforcement system, from legislative changes that set the foundation, to insights from the initial pilot, through to rollout strategy and expansion. It also looks ahead to the next step: upgrading to AI LPR. The Pittsburgh Parking Authority will soon use AI-powered cameras to improve enforcement efficiency and create new opportunities for automation at scale.

Extreme weather events are becoming a more regular occurrence. As I write this blog, large portions of the country are digging out from significant winter weather events – many of whom do not experience ice, snow and subzero temperatures on a regular (or even occasional!) basis.