IBM has released a Global Parking Survey that tells us basically what we already know — In first world countries where parking is enforced and there are parking spaces available, people find it easy to find parking spaces, but in the third world, where even when its enforced, no one pays the fines anyway, parking is chaos. Read about it here.
There are quite a few paragraphs explaining their survey but its pretty easy to see on this scale. Cute they use a parking meter as a graphic:
The higher the number, the more pain a parker has. In New Delhi or Bangalore its off the charts but in Chicago, LA, or Buenos Aires you are home free.
The IBM survey folks also noted that, are you ready, in some cities people actually gave up looking for a space and went somewhere else. Six out of 10 did this, according to IBM, one time a year. DOn’t believe me here is the money quote:
IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) first parking survey released today found that drivers in 20 international cities face a daily struggle in finding a parking space. In the past year, nearly six out of 10 drivers have abandoned their search for a space at least once, and more than a quarter have gotten into an argument with a fellow motorist over a parking space.
I’m wondering what’s so bad about this “giving up.” Once a year people abandoned their search. HUH — Say they go out to dinner, to the mall, or to a meeting twice a week. And one time in 100 they get so frustrated that they just give up and go somewhere else. Can someone tell me the problem here. Look I know parking is an issue, and the problem isn’t that they give up, its that it takes them 30 minutes or an hour to find a space.
And this:
Globally, one in four (27 percent) respondents self-reported being involved in an argument with a fellow driver over a parking space within the last year. Drivers in New Delhi (58 percent), Bangalore (44 percent), Nairobi (43 percent) and Milan (37 percent) were the most vocal with each other over a specific parking spot. The survey indicates that the most mild-mannered drivers, at least when it comes to avoiding arguments about parking, are in Chicago (89 percent), Los Angeles and Stockholm (87 percent), Montreal (85 percent) and Singapore (83 percent).
Does this mean that those drivers in India, Kenya, and Italy were hot heads while those in the US, Canada, Sweden and Singapore kept their cool? Does this survey have any prediction what’s going to happen in India, Kenya and yes even Italy when the long arm of parking enforcement kicks in and cars are towed, booted, and cited like they are in the US, Sweden, Canada and Singapore where overstaying your meter is probably a capital offense.
This is what happens when non parking folks take parking surveys.
JVH
