APMS—What Are They?
There are several different types of advanced parking management systems currently in use in the U.S. today.
Pre-Trip Parking Information Systems
Pre-trip parking information systems can be as low-tech as publishing a map of available parking facilities. For more high-tech systems, several cities across the U.S. provide pre-trip parking information over the Internet. These Web pages provide a map of where the parking facilities are relative to major access routes and attractions. These Web pages also provide other information to help the traveler make a parking plan, i.e., the facility's address, capacity, hours of operation, costs, and forms of payment accepted. One such website in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (http://www.parkmilwaukee.com), as shown in Figure 2, operates independent of any real-time parking information being collected at the individual garages. Often, this approach is the first step in moving towards a more sophisticated APMS solution.
Figure 2. Parking Destination Information Available at ParkMilwaukee.com[5]
Lot-Specific Parking Information Systems
Lot-specific systems provide parking information using signs that typically have both passive and active components. The passive component provides simple directions to parking facilities, such as with an arrow. The active component supplements the passive component to advise the traveler of the availability of spaces at the facility. The Chicago Metra Park-and-Ride and the Seattle Center advanced parking management systems profiled in this report both use signs to provide lot-specific information. Figure 3 shows one of the signs used by Metra.
Figure 3. A Chicago Metra Sign Providing Lot-Specific Parking Information
Floor-, Aisle-, and Space-Specific Parking Information Systems
In addition to providing information about which lots are full and how many spaces are available at remaining lots, more complex advanced parking information systems have signs on every floor of a garage, at the start of every aisle, and sometimes in front of every individual parking space. The BWI Airport advanced parking management system profiled in this report is an example of a system that provides information on the availability of parking spaces at the floor, aisle, and parking space level of specificity. Figure 4 is an artist's rendering of the system used at BWI airport with signs showing the number of spaces available per aisle.
Figure 4. Illustration of Availability by Aisle at BWI Airport
Parking Reservation Systems
Some advanced parking management systems allow the traveler to reserve and pay for a parking space using the telephone, Internet or wireless handheld devices. The system used by Bay Area Rapid Transit at a park-and-ride facility in Millbrae, California, and the services offered by private companies such as MobileParking LLC and SpotScout™, all of which are profiled in this report, are examples of reservation systems. (See Other APMS Applications.)
Parking Navigation Systems
The most sophisticated type of advanced parking management system under development is one that guides the traveler to an open spot. A prototype of such a system was demonstrated by XM Satellite Radio in 2005. (See Other APMS Applications.)
- ParkMilwaukee.com Website (2006) ParkMilwaukee.com—Your Downtown Parking Resource. http://www.parkmilwaukee.com.