Parking Policy U-Turn in Europe : Effective Management Strategies

New Payment and Enforcement Technologies

Many parking systems benefit from the use of new technologies to automate fee payment, monitor system performance, and enhance the effectiveness of enforcement systems.

? Pay-by-phone: Implementing pay-by-phone services can eliminate some of the problems associated with parking fee collection, like theft and spillage. These payment services can be outsourced to a third-party vendor, which charges customers a small service fee, thereby passing down any costs associated with the service to the customer, not the city. The pay-by-phone company Verrus handles parking transactions in London and receives 10 per cent of the revenue as compensation. Three competing companies are trying to corner the market in offering this service. Pay-by-phone is also a good way to get political buy-in for introducing performance pricing because it makes parking so much easier for drivers, who don?t need to look for coins or rush back to a meter when running late.

? Smart Meters: Installing smart meters that use magnetic induction to recognize the metal mass of vehicles can lead to more efficient enforcement when drivers overstay their allotted time in a parking space. Both enforcement wardens and drivers receive a text message on their mobile phones when a meter has expired. These meters have been piloted in Paris and are widely used throughout France.

? Scan Cars: Digitizing license plate registrations and using a scan car to monitor parking compliance can improve the performance of a parking program. Enforcement of parking has been revolutionized in Amsterdam, where a scan van travels down the streets and reads digitized license plate numbers to assess whether a car is legally parked.

Efficient Service Contracting

Outsourcing aspects of a city?s parking management to a private third party can be an efficient tool to improve parking management and increase revenue collected from fines and fees. In Stockholm, many traditional government functions have been contracted out to private companies. City employees manage private contracts, review delivered products and services, as well as make sure contract agreements are kept on track. Two private security companieshandle parking enforcement?one responsible for the northern part of the city and the other the southern portion. Both companies must meet certain performance targets and their payment allocations can fluctuate based on de- livery of service. Parking wardens are expected to monitor a set number of parking spots during a shift. The companies are also evaluated based on the percentage of vehicles within compliance of parking rules?with the ultimate goal of reaching 100% compliance.

Regulatory Mechanisms for Off-Street Parking

In a growing number of European cities, parking policies seek to reduce the supply of off-street parking in locations with good public transport access.

? Parking Maximums: Historically, most cities required developers to build a minimum number of new parking spaces. Residential buildings had to include at least one, if not more, parking spaces per residential unit, and commercial developments had to build a minimum number of parking spaces per square meter depending on how the building would be used. European cities today are abolishing these parking minimums in town centres and placing new ceilings on the number of new parking spaces they can build. In the past, planners thought that requiring developers to build more parking would transfer the cost of parking supply onto private developers. Unfortunately, it also created a perverse incentive for developers to build more parking than the market required and stimulated car use. Paris abolished parking minimums and several other cities established zone-based maximums. Dutch cities, following the national ?A, B, C? policy introduced in 1989, divided themselves into three types of zones: areas with excellent public transport access and poor car access (designated with the letter A), areas with good public transport access and good car access (B), and areas with good car access but poor public transport access (C). Each zone had its own parking minimum and parking maximum. New developments in zone ?A? could only build a few parking spaces. In zone ?B? they had to build a moderate amount of parking within a specified range, and in zone ?C? they could build even more parking, but again within a specified range. Many cities outside of the Netherlands, like Antwerp and Zurich, also reduced parking maximums and minimums in locations proximate to public transport facilities.

? Regulating the Location of Parking: European cities regulate where parking can occur at different times of the day to encourage public transport use and more vibrant street life. Many cities push personal motor vehicle parking to peripheral locations, while giving public transport passengers and cyclists more convenient access to popular destinations.

? Parking Supply Caps: Both Zurich and Hamburg froze the existing parking supply in their respective city centres. When a new space is built off-street, an on-street space must be removed, so it can be repurposed for other needs like widened sidewalks or bikeways. This type of cap-and-trade was implemented in Hamburg in 1976 and in Zurich as part of its ?historic parking compromise? in 1996. Zurich went even further. Outside of the zone where the parking cap applies, the City of Zurich only allows developers to build new parking spaces if the surrounding roads can absorb additional traffic without congestion, and the air can handle additional pollution without violating ambient air quality norms. This policy has helped make Zurich one of the most liveable cities in Europe.

A full version of the report, Europe?s Parking U-Turn: From Accommodation to Regulation, is available at www.itdp.org.