LAX reduces supply, increases prices
Los Angeles International Airport, the first port of call for almost every Australian travelling to the US, announced on December 31 that they would be closing the cheapest of their three parking lots (Parking Lot B) and converting it to employee parking only. Management claims that this change represents an effort to consolidate their parking […]
Parking fines determined by your income
Following on from previous posts on increases in parking fine revenues for Brisbane City Council and the ongoing battles at Balmoral, we have come across a very interesting development in Europe. Everything-Green website TreeHugger has drawn to our attention to the concept of tying speeding fines (and parking fines!) to the offending driver’s income. This […]
Brisbane City Council gets $18 million from parking fines
The Courier Mail reported on January 4 that Brisbane’s on-street inspectors are working overtime, with over 256,511 parking infringement notices issued last financial year, totaling fine revenues of just over $18 million. Almost one-third of all parking fines were recorded on the five main streets in Brisbane’s CBD, with Elizabeth Street recording the highest number […]
How much does it cost to build a car park around the world?
Davis Langdon has published the twelfth edition of its Blue Book, a comprehensive document covering a wide range of topics related to the property and construction industry including the very important issue of sustainability in new and refurbished buildings. We found in it an interesting comparative table showing the cost of building multi storey car […]
Singapore’s green mall car parks
We’ve been reading up on the ‘Green Mark’ awards in Singapore, launched by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) in January 2005 to promote environmental awareness in the construction and real estate sectors. It is a benchmarking scheme that aims to achieve a sustainable built environment by incorporating best practices in environmental design and construction, […]
The Price of Parking at Airports
Cristina Lynn recently attended the 2009 Australasian Airports Landside Transport Conference (AALTC) in Townsville, Queensland, where she spoke on the topic of airport parking charges. Her presentation explores the economics of parking at airports, both in Australia and internationally, with data and examples of how pricing should be determined as well as a global comparison […]
Parking World magazine – October issue
The October issue of Parking World magazine is now out, and focuses on Airport Parking and Technology. There are a few mentions of PCI in this month’s issue, including the announcement of Kathy Ross’ appointment to PCI, and Cristina Lynn’s article about Sydney’s traffic challenge in the future, called Traffic Congestion – Sydney’s Paradigm Paralysis. […]
Number plate scanning used for good?
Recently, PCI published information about new number plate recognition technology (called autoChalk) currently being trialed in Australia for parking enforcement, in an article called Drive-By Chalkings. The Age on September 5 reported on the use of such technology for crime detection and prevention, where cars are scanned daily, using software capable of reading characters on […]
Get out of your car
A ‘hot topic’ in the parking industry, especially in the application of planning principles and theories to the pricing of urban parking, is the ‘make parking more expensive’ argument. Refer to our recent blog posts, San Francisco City Parking Report, and Head out of the sand please, Mosman residents! Coined ‘Out of the car thinking’, […]
Sydney Parking 2029
With forecast strong population growth, Sydney’s unenviable claim as one of the most expensive cities in the world in which to park looks set to dramatically worsen over the next two decades. It may be overreacting, but the Sydney Morning Herald recently published “The Big Squeeze”, labeling the issue a ‘Parking Crisis’ and predicting that […]
Melbourne Car Park sells for $38m
The car park at 522 Flinders Lane in Melbourne has recently been sold by ISPT for $38 million to a local private buyer. We understand that the car park comprises around 1200 spaces and therefore this would indicate a price per bay of just over $30,000. Knight Frank agent Clinton Baxter said that new apartment […]
San Francisco City Parking Report
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority recently presented a report with in-depth recommendations and strategies for managing on and off-street parking, congestion and zoning districts across the city. The Transportation Authority clearly embraced market principles for pricing in accordance with demand for space so that parking, particularly in commercial districts and spillover neighborhoods, is best […]
CBD parking costs through the roof
Following up from our post last week, ‘Colliers International Global CBD Parking Rate Survey’, the Sydney Morning Herald has published their take on the report, including additional information about the cost of investing in car parks as a property investment, and commentary from Wendy Machin of the NRMA. Whilst the inclusion of Sydney in the […]
Colliers International Global CBD Parking Rate Survey 2009
Colliers International have just released their Global CBD Parking Rate Survey for 2009. The survey, which tracks 140 downtown parking districts around the world, found that Australia’s capital cities ranked among the most expensive places in the world to park. Sydney, Brisbane and Perth again all ranked in the top 10 cities globally for the […]
What are the key things investors look for in a car park?
Sourced from Parking World’s blog, the article ‘Parking remains attractive for investors’ explores some of the key things that make a car park an attractive investment. According to the article, authored by Macquarie Group, three characteristics have a meaningful impact on the attractiveness to potential investors: Demonstrated ability to retain locations and grow the portfolio […]
Revenue control
We have spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about the maximisation of revenue from car parks. As everyone is all too aware, these times call for improved systems and monitoring to ensure that all assets are performing as well as they can be. ‘Is Revenue Control An Oxymoron’ is an […]
London on-street parking permits study
London, as one of the most urbanised and populated cities in the world, continues to face an increasing number of cars in use on the roads, with relatively little or no additional availability of parking. The number of registered cars in the city has increased by 10% to 2.6 million vehicles in just the last […]
NSW budget and implications on the parking and property industry
The NSW mini-budget was released on Monday June 15, with some interesting and relevant implications for the industry. Of course, the most notable feature of the mini-budget was a fiscal stimulus which will provide a temporary 50% cut to the stamp duty for people buying newly constructed dwellings, valued up to $600,000, until December 2009. […]
Sydney braces for impact of parking levy on July 1
With the NSW State’s increased parking levy due to come into effect from July 1, parking operators in Sydney claim that they will begin closing parking bays from next month, with the 110% tax increase rendering some parking spots economically unsustainable. Published in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 6, Bay Watch: parking operators’ fury […]
Car park values remain strong
With the Aquavista Car Park in Melbourne’s Docklands up for sale with an asking price of around $5 million for 109 bays, this article in The Age examines the state of the market for this “special” category of property. Read the full article online. ‘Car park values remain strong’.
If you think the current flu epidemic is a worry, what is happening to parking and traffic congestion levies?
On Tuesday May 26, the Western Australia State Government announced an increase in the annual CBD car bay license fee. Owners of commercial car parks in Perth are facing a $1 per bay per day increase from 1st July. This is an increase of $365 on the existing levy of $221, meaning that car park […]
Green car parks – It’s win-win
We recently published Cristina Lynn’s article which appeared in the Parking World Magazine “Green Car Parks – An Oxymoron” in which she explored the means of ‘greening’ car parks, and the benefits to the owner/operator. Donald R Morgan has published an article “Lower Your Parking Facility Operational Costs and Save the Planet” which reinforces the […]
Six steps to add value to your car park
We have recently published a presentation called ‘Six steps to add value to your car park’ on the presentation sharing site SlideShare. We are happy to provide this information to our clients and other interested parties as part of our contribution to the development of the parking industry. You can view the presentation online here: […]
Davis Langdon Consumer Sentiment Monitor, May 2009
Kindly provided to us courtesy of Davis Langdon, their research report into Consumer Sentiment in the construction industry is a valuable research tool in understanding current industry attitudes. Their findings indicate that their Sentiment Index has improved over the past three months, indicating that the industry may have begun to turn the corner. The other […]
It’s still a service industry
Given that much of the content we write about relates to how technology can assist in improving the functionalities resulting from automating, it’s sometimes easy to forget that in most cases, the parking industry still relies on person-to-person interactions. Mark Morris from Lanier Parking Solutions in Atlanta is Director of Organisational Development, and has published […]
Are you maximising your car park earnings?
In view of the current economic climate we know you will be looking for even more ways to generate maximum revenue from your existing assets. Your car parks are no different! An easy way to check the financial and operational health of your car park is to undertake an independent performance review. By way of […]
Green Car Parks – An Oxymoron?
On the subject of improving the bottom line of your car parking assets, you may be interested to read the article published in two parts by Parking World Magazine (September and November 2008) written by Cristina Lynn. In the article, she outlines several initiatives that can be undertaken to improve the environmental footprint of your […]
Driven mad but…
One of the services we provide at PCI is advice regarding wayfinding and signage in car parks. Our approach when addressing this issue is to put ourselves in the client’s “seat” when looking for an available parking space and – often most importantly – when looking for their vehicle at the end of their […]