S U M M E R 2 0 0 5

Parking Council’s
Leadership
Letter from the Chair
2005 Executive Board
By Randy McCourt, P.E., PTOE
Chair—Randy McCourt The ITE Parking Council will publish a newsletter twice
Vice-Chair—Mary Smith
a year to update members on current issues and topics in
Technical Co-Chairs—Todd Litman and
Jerry Salzman parking. ITE’s role in parking is different from other or-
Articles and Publications Chair—John ganizations such as the National Parking Association, In-
Edwards ternational Parking Institute, TRB, or ULI. Our goal is to
Programs Chair—Ed Papazian and focus on the transportation engineering aspects of park-
Peter Volk ing-things such as parking demand/supply relationships
Newsletter Chair—Kerensa Swanson (Parking Generation), parking signing and wayfinding (as it relates to the
Fromherz Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices) and parking management. The
Awards Chair—Robert Jurasin following graphic is an organizational chart that we are considering to iden-
Past Chair—Allen Swanson tify our role in parking, as well as how we can best support and cooperate
with other groups that are extensively involved in various other aspects of
parking (ranging from operations and technology to design and construc-
tion). Our (ITE) role may change in the future with interests of our mem-
Institute of Transportation bers, but for now we will be focusing on three primary efforts-keeping
Engineers Parking Generation up to date, providing an informational report on park-
1099 14th Street, N.W. ing demand/supply management and parking signing (working with FH-
Suite 300 West WA/MUTCD committees). To this end, our newsletter will provide updates
Washington, DC 20005-3438 on parking generation research and other parking related issues of signifi-
Phone: +1 202-289-0222 cance to transportation engineers and planners. I would like to encourage
FAX: +1 202-289-7722
all members with interests in parking to contact me with ideas that we can
ITE Internet Home Page: www.ite.org
consider as a council. We will be sure to consider these suggestions and
even publish summaries in future newsletters.

Parking Council
Newsletter Contents
Letter from the Chair . . . . . Page 1
Upcoming Meetings. . . . . . Page 2
ITE Parking Council Best
Practices Award.. . . . . . . . Page 3
Home Improvement Parking
Demand Study Update. . . Page 4
Portland’s Parking Meter
Pay Stations .. . . . . . . . . . Page 5
Parking Publications. . . . . . Page 6

See you at the

ITE 2006 Technical
Conference and Exhibit
in San Antonio, TX, USA
on March 19–22
Figure 1: ITE Parking Council Role in Relation to Other Groups
 Parking Topics at Meetings
By Ed Papazian and Peter Volk

The Parking Council participates in the ITE technical Daniel Brame of the Port of Portland in Portland Oregon
conferences and annual meetings by sponsoring techni- presented his paper entitled “Making Room for Parking
cal sessions. In the 2005 Technical Conference and Ex- in ITS: The PDX Experience.” Dan described recent ad-
hibit in Las Vegas, our council sponsored a session titled vances in parking technology that are applicable to many
“State-of-the-Art in Parking Management and Design” types of parking facilities. They include single-space
and conducted a special interest roundtable on Parking parking guidance systems (SSPG) and pay on foot/credit
Generation. card in/out systems. He also described the successful pay
on foot/credit card in/out system that was recently in-
The technical session included the following presentations: stalled at Portland International Airport (PDX).

• Case studies in Advanced Parking Management: Glen Hollsworth of TTM Traffic Engineering Group in
The U.S. Experience, by Jennifer Rephlo of SAIC; Toowong, Australia made a presentation entitled “Cen-
• Norfolk’s Parking Wayfinding Signage System, by tral Business District Parking Policy.” Glen raised ques-
Daniel Rydzewski of the City of Norfolk, VA; tions about whether the various strategies considered to
• Review of Parking Generation, by Randy McCourt reduce parking supply and demand will be effective.
of DKS Associates; and
• Shared Parking: From Study to Reality, by Mary Ronald Stehman of HNTB Corp. in Arlington, VA pre-
Smith of Walker Parking Consultants. sented his paper entitled “Designing for Parking
Garages That Are More Than Parking Garages.” Ron
The presentations ranged from an overview of parking described the growing trend in developing parking
management programs around the United States, a spe- garages in special settings that include ground floor re-
cific program in Norfolk, VA, to an overview of the park- tail, office uses, or ground floor transportation centers.
ing generation report and a discussion of the principles In addition, parking garages are often being fit into the
and application of shared parking. urban fabric by altering features contained in a conven-
tional parking structure. He described three case stud-
The roundtable discussion focused on how to make ies including a garage in Richmond, VA which is built
Parking Generation a better resource for the trans- above freeway and as part of a proposed office building,
portation profession. Among the issues discussed were a garage at George Bush International Airport in Hous-
the need for more data, statistical presentation of the ton, TX that needed to be built around various airport
results, urban conditions, minimum or maximum park- operations and a garage at Ronald Reagan Washington
ing rates and the relationship between Parking Genera- National Airport in the Washington, DC area on a
tion and the Transportation Planning Handbook. wedge-shaped parcel of land.

Our council sponsored session at the ITE Annual Meet- Ed Papazian and Peter Valk are submitting proposed
ing and Exhibit in Australia. The session was titled sponsored sessions for the Parking Council for the 2006
“Parking Design and Management” and consisted of two Annual Meeting. In addition, Ed has worked with the
speakers from the USA and two speakers from Aus- Transportation Planning Council on submitting a joint
tralia. What was very interesting was that parking is- sponsored session.
sues are universal.
If you have any ideas for a technical session, please con-
Peter Johnstone, from ARRB Group, Ltd. in Leederville tact Ed Papazian ([email protected]) or Pe-
Australia made a presentation entitled “Parking Strategy ter Valk ([email protected]).
Developments in Selected Australian Cities: A Platform
for Sustainable Transport Systems.” Peter described var-
ious strategies that are considered to reduce parking de-
mand and parking supply in urban locations.

2 ITE PC Newsletter • Summer 2005

 ITE Parking Council Best Practices Award
By Robert Jurasin
Award Description factors that can affect parking demand (land use, tran-
The award is bestowed, annually, on a project that ap- sit use, TDM, pricing).
plies innovative techniques to a parking issue/problem
in a study or planning effort. Projects that benefit the More than 30 members of ITE participated in the re-
profession through greater understanding and/or the port’s development and review, contributing substantial
public through effective solutions to parking issues will new parking data. This report was reviewed by six
be considered. Submissions that effectively communi- groups: Parking Generation Committee, ITE Council
cate a problem statement, clearly outline methods used Review Panel, Academic Review Group, Advisory Panel,
and highlight results and benefits will be given the Technical Editor and ITE Staff. Beyond this, two open
highest consideration. The emphasis is on an applied houses at ITE meetings and a dozen presentations at
project (not design/construction documents). To be eli- ITE meetings were made to update members and seek
gible, the project should have been completed during the additional information.
previous calendar year, and a member of the Parking
Council should have had a substantial role in the pro- This report will be used throughout the country and
ject. Public agencies, consultants and others are wel- world by all those involved in the parking industry, in-
come to apply. cluding all levels of government, parking authorities,
airport/port/transit authorities, universities/medical
The winning project will demonstrate the best of park- centers, parking practitioners, research/academia, land
ing-related practices in five areas: developers, consultants and the public. It is a document
• Originality; referred to on a daily basis and is worthy of this award.
• Quality;
• Significance; In our next newsletter, we will provide more informa-
• Comprehensiveness; and tion for our second annual award process. In the mean-
• Transferability to other places or agencies. time, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
contact Robert P. Jurasin, Chair of the Award Commit-
Randy McCourt, who authored the informational re- tee at [email protected] or Heather Talbert,
port, was awarded the plaques in Montana at the ITE ITE headquarters at [email protected].
District 6 Meeting.

Our 2005 Winner Congratulations to Randy and the committee

that worked on Parking Generation—keep up the
great work!
Parking Generation 3rd Edition is the winner of our
first Annual Best Practices Award. It also won the ITE
International Coordinating Council Award for 2005.

Parking Generation had not been updated since its sec-

ond edition in 1987. Parking data were kept on paper
forms in boxes. This third edition converted all of the
historical data to electronic format (Excel), expanded
the available data from about 1,000 parking demand
studies to nearly 4,000, expanded the number of land
uses from about 50 to more than 90 and developed com-
pletely new statistical summaries of data.

Parking Generation, 3rd Edition also corrected numer-

ous flaws in the prior report, expanded that breadth and
depth of data supporting findings regarding peak park-
ing demand and provided a broad base of data to expand
the assessment of shared parking (via time of day, week,
month variations). By opening up the data set beyond Dalene Whitlock, Zaki Mustafa and Ken Ackeret
suburban sites, knowledge has been enhanced into the awarding Randy McCourt the ITE Parking Council and
Coordinating Council Award in Kalispell, Montana.

ITE PC Newsletter • Summer 2005 3

Home Improvement Parking Demand Study Update
By Ransford S. McCourt
The third edition of Parking Generation included 34 sur- While these additional surveys point to additional is-
vey observations of home improvement superstores sues regarding peak parking demand for home improve-
(Land Use Code 862). Many of these studies were from ment stores (particularly associated with annual sale or
the 1990’s. In 2001, additional studies were conducted store performance), these factors are not necessarily
at 17 stores in the southwest region of the United predictable over a 5-10-20 year (or more) period where
States. This information was provided in limited form facility planning decisions must be made at a planning
from research submitted to the City of Carrollton, TX department level. Things such as store hours can
thanks to Cesar Molina. While the detailed observation change overnight with the decision of corporate man-
data were not made available (confidential), the find- agement. Additionally, having accurate estimates of
ings from the research provided additional understand- store sales in the planning/approval phase of a store is
ing of home improvement parking demand probably very speculative or unlikely2 (as compared to
characteristics. The following general findings may be an estimate of building area).
useful when considering home improvement superstore
parking needs. The over-estimation of parking needs for home im-
• Building area as the sole independent vari- provement stores is apparent from the data in the third
able may not be the most accurate factor for edition of Parking Generation. While the peak Saturday
estimating parking needs. The research indi- demand 85th percentile of 4.40 vehicles per 1,000 GFA
cated that annual store sales may be a better pre- was found, the average parking supply of the survey
dictor of design-day1 peak hour parking demand. sites was 4.9 spaces per 1,000 GFA. Additionally, re-
• In using building area as an independent search in 2001 indicated that the average peak occu-
variable, variations in peak parking demand pancy among study stores was 45 percent of the parking
can occur based on several variables such as spaces available for use with the highest peak occupan-
store hours, market size and annual store cy of 80 percent. This would tend to indicate the meth-
sales. The research indicated the following: ods used to estimate parking supply are in excess of
1. Stores with regular hours have higher peak most home improvement stores.
parking demand on the design-day than stores
that operate 24 hours a day. The variation may This recent research points to some factors that would
range from 30 to 80 percent depending upon an- result in parking demand that exceeds the typical ratios
nual sales. This can probably be attributed to noted in Parking Generation to help decision-making
the spreading of demand over more time in the when considering parking needs. Probably more than
design-day (Saturday) than when the flexibility anything, it points to the need to consider parking man-
of more store hours are not available. agement to address peak needs of high sale and large
2. Stores with large market sizes may increase de- market area stores. Providing parking more than 5.0
sign-day peak hour demand by 5 to 15 percent. spaces per 1,000 GFA may appear to address the peak
3. Stores with sales that are higher or lower com- parking needs of these high performing conditions, but
pared to average annual sales conditions may given that demands above those noted in Parking Gen-
eration only occur for a few days out of the year and on-
impact design-day peak parking by 25 to 40 per-
ly a few hours of those days-parking management
cent. Lower sales stores would be below the av-
strategies (such as shared parking with office land uses)
erage and higher sales stores would be above the may be better approaches than paving larger parking
average. lots in these circumstances.
• The 85th percentile parking demand ratio
from the third edition of Parking Generation
for Saturdays (4.40 vehicles per 1,000 GFA)
would have overestimated demand for all the ___________________________________________________
lower annual sales stores from this survey,
1
Design-day for this research was the fifth busiest day of the year.
accurately predicted peak demand in about
The peak hour demand on this day was estimated to typically oc-
half of the average sized, average annual cur on a Saturday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
sales buildings, but would have underesti- 2
After a store is open, accurate annual store sales data are more
mated nearly all of the high performing an- readily available and may be utilized to estimate parking manage-
nual sales stores (particularly those less than ment strategy needs in a shared parking situation.
100,000 GSF).

4 ITE PC Newsletter • Summer 2005

 Portland’s Parking Meter Pay Stations
By Ransford S. McCourt, with input from Kieth Ehrensing, City of Portland

In early 2002 the City of Portland authorized installa- Portland spent a lot of time working through the two
tion of pay station pay and display technology to replace way communication of the pay stations—the “thing”
its aging coin parking meters. With more than 7,000 that put smart into the meter. This has been very suc-
meters in operation, this was a major undertaking. The cessful, as the city has seen the cost of revenue collec-
SchlumbergerSema manufacturers “smart meter” pay tion drop in half through proactive management of
station was selected, which cost about $6,100 each and stations that are able to tell staff when they are nearly
replaced up to nine meters per block face (new coin me- full or need maintenance. Coin meters typically jammed
ters cost $650 per space). The smart meters are solar about four times per year, but the equivalent down time
powered, accept credit cards and remove meter posts with the pay station has been one time per year per
from the sidewalk area-significant benefits. The pay space. Additionally the locked/sealed system and com-
stations work in three steps: (1) the user goes to the pay munication of revenue receipt to the management sys-
station; (2) payment can be made via coin, credit, debit, tem (creating a redundant back up checking system)
or smart cards; (3) driver takes sticker receipt and have made the revenue recovery seamless and much
places it on the window inside of the car at streetside. more efficient and less problematic compared to coin
Portland has phased its implementation during the last meters. The enforcement staff has remained the same
3 years (originally planned for five but high public ac- with the number of citations and revenue not substan-
ceptance and system efficiency accelerated the roll out). tially changing from before to after implementation of
In 2002 about 150 stations were in place, in 2003 an- the pay stations. Enforcement staff efficiency has in-
other 885 were added and now about 1,130 stations are creased with more managed systems of enforcement in-
in place (on average they service about 6.7 parking cluding the use of hand-held ticket writing devices
spaces). Downtown development in the Pearl District (similar to a PDA) that eliminates hand writing of tick-
has added to the overall on-street parking inventory in ets. The net result of all of this has been greater rev-
the past year (now about 8,400 spaces—about 6,000 enue. In 2001/2002 the coin meter revenue was about
downtown, 1,100 in the Lloyd District and the rest in $7.5 million, in 2004/2005 (before significant increases
the Pearl or other districts). Originally the stations in paid space inventory) the revenue with the pay sta-
were placed on blocks with four or more meters and now tions increased to $9.7 million.
they are placed on blocks with 3 or more meters, thus
increasing the number of overall spaces controlled by When Portland installed this newer technology, it was
the pay stations to about 95 percent of the paid parking the first large city in North America to change the ma-
inventory. jority of its meters. Toronto and other cities had used
pay stations and some older technology and now numer-
The phasing of the implementation helped with public ous cities are making the change. In the northwest,
acceptance, but the over-riding issue was the user pay- Seattle is buying about 1,600 pay stations and both
ment flexibility that allowed credit, debit and smart Spokane and Tacoma are considering a similar move.
cards to be brought to the system. Now more than 55 The northwest cities are also looking into ways to share
percent of the transactions are with credit or debit cards smart card technology and use the smart cards for vali-
and about 1 percent with smart cards. The greatest dation systems. Other new technologies in consideration
benefit for longer-term meters is that it would have tak- are the use of cell phones for payment and the ability to
en almost a half roll of quarters to pay for parking with validate/approve credit card use prior to transactions.
a coin meter. The sidewalk space created by the re- With all this increased interest, the number of manufac-
moval of parking meter posts has been favorably re- turers is jumping—from about 12 when Portland began
ceived by streetside business (cafes and bistros) as its research to nearly 25 now. Some of the key issues to
about 2–3 ft. of sidewalk space was reclaimed. address in consideration of these systems are software,
encryption techniques and effectiveness of two-way com-
munication systems.

ITE PC Newsletter • Summer 2005

5
 Parking Publications
By Mary Smith and Todd Litman
The second edition of the landmark Urban Land Insti- • Annual sport wagon sales have increased from
tute (ULI) publication Shared Parking is available and 66,000 in 1996 to 500,000 in 2000 to 1.75 million
can be ordered at www.uli.org. Based on all new data, in 2004. From 2003 to 2004, they increased 17.6
this book contains information to estimate parking re- percent.
quirements, a chapter on parking management and case • Annual sales of vans have declined from 1.8 mil-
studies that describe how shared parking has been im- lion in 2000 to less than 1.5 million in 2002-2004,
plemented. The document has been coordinated with the suggesting that minivan drivers switched to sport
third edition of Parking Generation. The CD included in wagons. However, van sales were up 4.7 percent
the package contains an excel spreadsheet model that in 2004, the first increase since 2000. It appeared
can be used to experiment with different mixes of office, that in 2004 a fair number of sport wagon pur-
retail, hotel, restaurant and residential space and quick- chases came at the expenses of mid- and large-
ly determine the optimal parking requirements through size car sales.
shared parking. The program includes weekday and Sat-
urday parking demand ratios, hourly variations and pas- Overall, the percent of vehicles in classes 10 and 11 (the
sengers per car, adjustments for seasonal variations and two largest classes) went up 24.2 and 9.3 percent, re-
passengers per auto. The cost is $595 for ULI members spectively. Since 2002, class 10 vehicles have increased
and $695 for nonmembers. from 14.3 to 16.4 percent of vehicle sales and class 11
went from 9.3 to 10.8 percent.
Upcoming Article in Parking Magazine
Mary Smith, vice-chair of the council, recently complet- There are indications however that vehicle sizes have
ed her 20th annual update of the analysis of vehicle peaked and will start to inch down. Mary has done a
sales trends on parking dimensions. Mary evaluates car partial analysis focusing on light truck sales for the first
and light truck (pickups, SUVs, vans and sport wagons) 3 months of 2005. Clearly, the continuing popularity of
sales data for the United States using a classification sport wagons is significantly impacting SUV sales, with
system based on the area ( length x width) of the vehi- SUV sales down 19 percent and sport wagon sales up 16
cle, which allows for more understanding of vehicle size percent, but the shift is across the board, as class 6 and
trends. Classes 5-7 are considered small vehicles and 7 SUV sales are down 41 percent, class 8 and 9 SUVs
classes 8-11 are large vehicles for the purposes of small down 11 percent and class 10 and 11 sales down 19 per-
car only stalls. Although there was considerable media cent. Conversely, full-size van sales are up 10 percent.
coverage of the reduced sales of large SUVs in the More recently, it was reported that there has been a sig-
spring of 2004, for the full calendar year vehicle sizes nificant decline in the “blue book” resale value of SUVs,
again crept up. A major factor however was the closure which is attributed to high gas prices. Also according to
of a couple of tax loopholes that encouraged people to industry sources, there appears to be a shift towards
buy larger SUVs and pickups than they otherwise medium-sized pickups, rather than the extended ones.
would have purchased last winter or to accelerate a
planned purchase from 2005 to 2004. Also, the Ameri- The complete analysis is scheduled to be published in
can manufacturers waged a furious incentive war in the the October Parking Magazine, published by the Na-
fourth quarter to try to improve market share, as well tional Parking Association.
as profitability, through sales of larger vehicles. The fol-
lowing summarizes some of Mary’s key findings for cal- Parking Management
endar year 2004 sales: Todd Litman is working on an informational report that
• Cars dropped from 47 percent in 2003 of combined describes parking management strategies, how to eval-
car/light truck sales to 45.4 percent in 2004. uate and implement them and how to develop an inte-
• The percent of cars that qualify as small (classes 5-7) grated parking management program. Parking
inched down from 32.7 percent in 2003 to 32.6 per- management includes a variety of strategies that result
cent in 2004. in more efficient use of existing parking facilities, in-
• The percent of light trucks that qualify as small cluding the sharing of parking facilities, regulation to
inched up, from 7.1 to 7.5 percent, due to sales of control and prioritize the use of parking spaces, more
small sport wagons. accurate and flexible parking requirements, parking
• Overall, the percent of small vehicles still declined, maximums, use of remote parking facilities, overflow
from 19.2 to 18.9 percent. parking plans, improved user information, access man-
• Annual sales of SUVs were down just a tad (1.0 agement and smart growth land use policies, improved
percent). walkability between parking facilities and destinations,

6 ITE PC Newsletter • Summer 2005

transportation management associations and parking costs, increasing facility design flexibility, reducing en-
brokerage services, increasing capacity of existing park- ergy consumption and pollution emissions, reducing
ing facilities, mobility management programs that en- sprawl and reducing impervious surface area.
courage use of alternative travel modes, parking pricing Parking management is increasingly supported by
with improved pricing methods, parking cash out, un- transportation and land use professional organizations.
bundling of parking from building spaces (so occupants Many individual parking management strategies have
only pay for the amount of parking they want to use), been described in existing documents published by ITE
parking tax reform, bicycle parking as a substitute for and other professional organizations, but no existing
some automobile parking and addressing spillover prob- documents provide detailed information on all of these
lems through better enforcement and compensation. strategies or guidance on how to develop an integrated
parking management plan. The ITE parking council
An integrated parking management program that in- wants to provide leadership and guidance for practi-
cludes a variety of cost-effective strategies can signifi- tioners who want to apply parking management solu-
cantly reduce the amount of parking required at a tions.
particular location compared with what is required by
conventional standards. Parking management can help For information on this project and how ITE members can
address many planning objectives, including improving stay informed contact Todd Litman at [email protected].
users’ quality of service, reducing parking and traffic
congestion, reducing conflicts resulting from parking
spillover impacts, reducing road and parking facility

Parking Signing: Are Updates Needed?

Uniform parking signing helps traveler efficiency and understanding. While parking signs are not necessari-
ly as safety critical as regulatory or warning signs, they provide a core service to travelers. With the move to
pay-and-display smart parking meters in many downtowns, the MUTCD provides no guidance for these types
of signs. Additionally, parking wayfinding signing throughout the United States and the world varies from
green signs to blue signs, round signs to rectangular signs. The MUTCD will be considering updates in 2006.
Should you have any input and interest in this topic, please e-mail Randy McCourt at [email protected]

Parking Generation, 3rd Edition

Parking Generation, 3rd Edition represents a significant change from its
predecessor published in 1987.Three times as much data are now available
and 91 land uses are represented. In addition, parking demand data by hour
of day is incorporated into this update.This edition begins a process of
segregating parking data records for future analysis and research into
various factors that may affect parking demand. Parking data are linked to
the hour of observation to provide a temporal understanding of parking
demand and the peak hour of parking demand. Additionally, this update
separates out the influences of area type on parking demand, including
(where data are available) information about sites that have priced parking.
ITE, 2004. ISBN No: 0-935403-92-2
Members: $95
Nonmembers: $125

ITE PC Newsletter • Summer 2005

7
 Washington, DC 20005-3438 USA
1099 14th Street, NW, Suite 300 West
Institute of Transportation Engineers

There are several hour-long

professional development programs.

ITE Professional Development Courses

meet professional development needs.
• Program modules are a cost-effective method of training at just $75 each for ITE members and $100 each for nonmembers.
• Each program module is easy to implement with a Microsoft PowerPoint slide set, instructor notes and a student reference manual.

To order your copies today, log on to the ITE Bookstore at www.ite.org/bookstore

or call +1 202-289-0222 ext. 130.

ITE Professional Development Program Fund

1099 14th Street, NW, Suite 300 West,Washington, DC 20005-3438 USA; Phone: +1 202-289-0222; Fax: +1 202-289-7722; www.ite.org