The first step in planning any parking system is to identify the key areas in the city that require parking management as it is important to bear in mind that the main aim of parking management is to create a turnover of parking bays.
Motorists will naturally park in the most convenient parking bay available and the trend is to occupy a parking bay that is closest to their place of business each morning and remain parked for the whole day. This is very detrimental because it limits the flow of people into the city and thus restricts convenient access to the CBD impacting commercial activity.
Maximum parking times
Once the areas requiring parking management have been identified, the next step is to decide on how long motorists should be allowed to park in each area. Parking bays close to the shopping hub should be limited to a short period, typically 1 to 2 hours.
Outside of the CBD parking should be made available for longer term parking or all day parkers.
Traffic flows
Hand in hand with creating a turnover of parking in a CBD, is the management of traffic flows into and out of a CDB. One of the key advantages of a parking marshal system is that it does not require booms to ensure payment for parking as exit booms can create traffic congestion at peak times.
Motorists can be assisted by the parking marshals when parking on-street ensuring a minimum disruption to traffic flows when motorists parallel park. Note that it is also very important to ensure that there is sufficient road space between the centre of the road and the parking bays to allow for this.
Tariffs
Tariff should be set to discourage motorists from using the city�s key CBD parking bays for longer than they need to. A tariff that is too low will not create the required turnover of parking bays whilst at the same time a tariff set too high will cause motorists to avoid visiting the CBD. A further factor that must be taken into account is that the tariff needs to be set at a level that will make the parking operation financially viable to operate.
A good way to determine what the tariff should be set at is to look at the existing tariffs used around the country. An excellent resource for researching parking tariffs and times is available at www.parkingtariffs.co.za which lists all sites operated using the quickpark system.
Law Enforcement
The purpose of parking law enforcement is to create a deterrent to motorists committing stationary violations by not parking for their parking or staying longer than the prescribed maximum time limits. It is however virtually impossible to issue a fine for every parking violation in a town, however, it is important to create the perception in the motorist�s minds that law enforcement is very active. When planning to implement a parking system, it is important to ensure that there will be reasonable law enforcement available to create this perception in the city.
Co-operation from the public prosecutor�s office
It is very important to have the local public prosecutors office involved from the beginning of the planning stages and to have their full support for the new system. This will ensure that the law enforcement operation is supported by the public prosecutor�s office ensuring effective prosecution of parking violations.
Unrealistic expectations of income for the municipality
The main aim of implementing a Parking Management System should not be to generate revenue for the municipality. Although in practise this will happen, it should not be the primary purpose. Effective parking management improves access to the city for all its residents by ensuring a turnover of parking bays, achieving this objective will deliver many benefits, both direct and indirect, to the whole community.
The big advantage of the income generation from a Parking Management System is that the system can pay for itself without any cost to the municipality. It is thus better to select the best overall system offered in the tender at a fair price and not the tender with the highest financial return to the city.
A fair and commercially viable share of the parking revenue for the municipality is approximately 25%. Tenders offering more than this will not be able to cover their operating costs and will therefore not be able to provide an effective Parking Management System.
Privatise the operation
A very diverse set of skills are required in order to run a parking marshal system effectively. Municipalities are constrained and bound by many rules and guidelines which limit their ability to respond to the day to day pressures placed on an operator when running an operation of this nature. It is best practise to enter into a public private partnership with an experienced operator to ensure the success of the system and deliver benefits to the whole community.
