Mark comments on the IBM technology article
Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, and new tools seem to be available everyday when it comes to managing and monitoring parking. This article is about a new system that automates the analysis of information that most qualified parking managers have been doing through various manual means for years, and that’s a good thing that they’re recoginizing the importance of this data. The piece of this story that really grabbed my attention, however, was this statement related to a fairly large study that was done on urban parking. If ever there was a statistic that illustrated the importance of properly managing parking and traffic in an urban core, for me this is it;
“…..frustration with the inability to find parking in popular urban areas. For instance, in the past year, nearly 6 out of every 10 drivers have abandoned a search for a parking space, forgoing their plans….”
What we don’t know is how many of those 6 in 10 drivers made a conscience decision at some other time to simply avoid downtown because of their previous frustration. How many of those drivers were decision makers who determined that locating a business, or scheduling a meeting downtown wasn’t a viable option anymore because of their experience? Could a restaurant, or any business survive if 60% of their customers had experienced a “bad” impression of that business in the past year?
Driving and parking are the first and last impressions a driver (and their fellow passengers) are going to have of their downtown experience. At the end of the day you don’t necessarily need to invest huge amounts of $’s into technology to manage this, but you better have someone that knows what they’re doing and understands how it all works and fits together.
Ok, the headline might be a “little” strong, but think about it. Many operators make their livings giving personal service to drivers as they enter and leave buildings, hotels, restaurants. They actually take over the front door.
JVH
