If you read the headline from an article posted Monday on Parknews.biz, you would begin to consider a harbinger of disaster ahead “How the $8 billion parking industry is evolving to stay alive.” If you drill down to the 10th graph you find that they are discussing parking operators. Seems companies like SP Plus, ABM, and LAZ plus the many smaller operators generate the $8 billion.
However if you take the parking business in toto, you find that it will generate over $144 billion this year, an amount 10% above 2019, the year before the pandemic. It seems to me that having come back after the heavy COVID losses to a 10 percent increase should be the headline. As an industry, we appear to be doing well. The large parking operators are not doing so well, but expect about a 2% increase on their bottom lines over the next five years.
If it bleeds it leads. They searched out about six percent of the industry and even though it appears to be growing, they are growing because operators are focusing on technology to help their bottom lines. Don’t be misled – Parking is coming back strong.
JVH
