APMS—Who Should Be Involved?
In ITS projects, the stakeholder groups and their interests must be identified early in the process. In the case of parking management, this notion holds especially true as there are many direct stakeholders who would not necessarily be included in deployments of other types of ITS technologies.
In parking management applications, project planners must consider the point of view of each stakeholder group, including private sector concerns and neighborhood issues. In most advanced parking management systems, there will be many stakeholder groups, such as attraction operators, parking operators (public and private), parking patrons, departments of transportation (city, county, state, and Federal), Councils of Government, utility providers, historical preservation groups, and neighborhood boards.
Typical interests of the first three stakeholder groups—attraction operators, parking operators, and parking patrons—are outlined below within the context of CBD, airport, and transit park-and-ride applications.
- Attraction operators are interested in providing safe and efficient access to their patrons. Downtown shop owners are interested in customer access to parking near shopping districts, while airport authorities are interested in the orderly flow of traffic to, from, and through the terminal area and into the parking area. Transit operators are interested in providing timely transfer opportunities for park-and-ride patrons.
- Parking operators are interested in maximizing the utilization of their facilities and minimizing the cost of providing parking services. Operators in business districts want to ensure that visitors are aware of availability of parking facilities. Those operating airport facilities want to ensure that patrons are aware of available spaces at the various facilities that support short- and long-term parking on the airport grounds. Airport parking operators also want to ensure that patron frustration with recirculation does not lead to parking in fire lanes or other illegal locations. Park-and-ride operators want to ensure that patrons view the transfer from the freeway or arterial roadway to transit vehicle as quick, safe, and frustration-free.
- Parking patrons are interested in minimizing the time spent looking for a parking spot and in minimizing the distance from the parking spot to the attraction. In airport parking environments, patrons are interested in saving time and in having adequate information to allow them to select the level of service that corresponds with their preference for high-, moderate-, or low-cost parking. In park-and-ride situations, patrons are especially interested in knowing whether space is available before they leave the freeway or arterial street as they want to reduce the chance that they will have to return after wasting time in a fruitless search. Transit parking patrons want to eliminate the need to search for a parking space, in an effort to minimize the time to transfer from the private to the transit vehicle.
Forming the Stakeholder Group
Most localities and regions actively address parking issues within their cooperative governmental structures ranging from neighborhood participation in city-run parking forums to jurisdiction representation in Councils of Government (COGs). COGs often form special committees that address parking issues. These committees define parking problems, investigate parking management solutions, and estimate parking management benefits and costs. Within these governmental groups are many stakeholders, including those who represent public agencies, components of the private business sector, and citizens of the community or region. Parking is becoming an increasingly important aspect of transportation planning.
Stakeholder group membership depends on the individual jurisdiction—its governmental organization, the division of responsibilities for parking operations and maintenance, jurisdiction membership in regional COGs, and participation of Citizen Action Committees (CACs). Table 1 lists the agencies and groups that may be included in an APMS project and identifies the roles each may have in the planning, installation, operations, and maintenance of advanced parking management systems.
Stakeholder | Responsibility |
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State Department of Transportation |
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City or County Planning Departments |
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City or County Transportation or Public Works Department |
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City or County Police Departments |
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Councils of Government |
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Citizen Action Committees |
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City or County Architectural Control Boards |
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Utility Companies |
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Communications Companies |
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Privately Owned Parking Vendors |
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