Dude, where’s my parking demand?
For most cities, curb management continues to revolve around parking. Parking has long dominated the curb and remains critical to the functionality and dynamics of a city’s transportation system, the success of local economies, and the experiences of residents and visitors. However, parking is no longer the only contender for curb space. The rise of new mobility options, delivery services, and street-safety initiatives has intensified competition for this limited resource.
As the variety of curb uses continues to grow, making informed decisions about how to allocate space has become increasingly complex. City planners and parking directors are often forced to make these decisions based on complex, sometimes disparate datasets that require significant time and effort to interpret. But what if this process could be more straightforward? What if there was a way to gain immediate, actionable insights into parking demand?
Where to get started
Policy and infrastructure changes are two key levers cities can pull when evolving how much curbside space is allocated, for what purpose, and at what price. The scale at which these changes are implemented—whether city-wide or block by block—can significantly impact the time required to execute them. Therefore, it’s crucial for cities to have powerful insights that help prioritize where to target interventions for the greatest impact.
Geospatial analysis offers a transformative approach to visualizing parking data, allowing for more informed and efficient decision-making. While static datasets and charts provide some insight into usage patterns, displaying parking transaction data on a map with robust filtering capabilities adds essential visual context. With the right geospatial tools, cities can visualize demand hotspots, identify patterns of underutilized spaces, and track how parking activity shifts throughout the city at different times of the day or week. This level of insight can elevate parking analytics, enabling cities to make data-driven decisions that are both strategic and impactful.
Leveraging geospatial analysis to make data-driven decisions
A granular view of parking data is essential for making informed decisions about pricing and infrastructure improvements. For example, a city might discover through geospatial analysis that a particular district experiences consistently high demand during weekday mornings. This insight could inform the implementation of dynamic pricing strategies that adjust rates during peak times, maximizing revenue while managing demand effectively. Alternatively, the city might identify areas where parking spaces are consistently underutilized and consider repurposing them for other uses, such as loading zones, bike lanes, or outdoor seating areas.
Consider a hypothetical scenario: A mid-sized city uses geospatial analysis to examine parking patterns across its downtown area. The data reveals that a particular zone consistently has high parking turnover and occupancy rates, suggesting a strong demand for short-term parking. In response, the city adjusts its pricing model for this zone, increasing rates slightly during peak hours while extending time limits on adjacent blocks with lower demand. This strategy not only optimizes parking availability but also helps balance demand across the area, reducing congestion and improving the overall parking experience.
These insights also have broader implications for urban planning and curbside management. By understanding where parking demand is highest and lowest, cities can make strategic decisions about where to invest in new infrastructure or how to adjust existing facilities to better meet the needs of the community. This data-driven approach ensures that resources are allocated efficiently, supporting broader goals such as reducing congestion, improving accessibility, and enhancing the overall urban environment.
Populus Curb Manager: Parking Insights—Transforming Data into Actionable Intelligence
Populus Curb Manager: Parking Insights provides best-in-class parking data management. It immediately breaks down data silos by aggregating parking data from multiple disparate sources that may be in place within a city. Parking Insights delivers clear measures of parking demand through comprehensive data reporting on the volume of activity as well as the volume of revenue generated.
The geospatial analysis embedded in Parking Insights offers a solution by providing a unified view of parking and curbside data, enabling cities to see the full picture at a glance. With enhanced decision-making capabilities, cities can move beyond the limitations of traditional data aggregation methods and embrace a more dynamic, responsive approach to curb management.
Conclusion
Geospatial analytics tools are no longer a luxury; they are rapidly becoming essential in the toolbox of Parking Directors and Transportation Engineers. These tools provide cities with a deeper, more complex understanding of parking demand, enabling them to make informed decisions that drive positive outcomes for the community.
Interested in exploring how advanced geospatial solutions can help you address your parking challenges? Reach out to the Populus team to learn more about our Curb Manager: Parking Insights product.