The NSW government announced last week that the Sydney Entertainment Centre, Convention Centre and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour will be closed for three years while they are expanded or replaced under a $1 billion upgrade approved by NSW cabinet.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the precinct will be expanded with a view to having facilities that are equal or better than those in other Australian capitals.

New facilities are expected to include:

• An upmarket replacement for the Entertainment Centre with seating for at least 8000 people
• An increase in size of the Exhibition Centre from 25,000 square metres to 40,000 square metres making it Australia's largest exhibition space;
• A convention hall with capacity for more than 10,000 people which can host multiple events simultaneously making it the biggest such facility in the country.
• Dedicated banqueting facilities for 2000 people, almost double the current capacity.
• A hotel with at least 300 rooms

Meanwhile, the government has opened the door for residential apartments, shops and restaurants to be built on Darling Harbour parkland as part of the overhaul. State cabinet has approved a 66 per cent increase in the area of Darling Harbour where developers will relocate and rebuild exhibition facilities and public areas as part of an upgrade expected to cost about $1 billion.

Due to be demolished to make way for the redevelopment of Darling Harbour, Sydney’s monorail has seen significant debate over what should happen to the structure once dismantled.

Landscape architect David Vago has drawn up a plan to take inspiration from New York’s famous High Line (see our blog post about the High Line here!), and turn the tracks into an elevated boardwalk and cycleway. His proposal would involve a three to five-metre-wide deck across the track, creating a 3.6-kilometre public walkway through the central business district.

The High-Lane, as he calls it, could be used by joggers, cyclists, office workers, parents with prams and tourists. The existing pylons would become vertical gardens and Monorail stations would be transformed into pocket parks, cafes and gallery spaces, taking around 12 to 18 months to build.

All the government entities remain non-committal regarding the project, with some scepticism and concerns given the proposed demolition to make way for the Darling Harbour redevelopment. 

Airport car parks are huge business, with major airport hubs seeing car parking producing around $80 million to $100 million of revenue each year.

Recent results from the 2012 ACI Airport Economics survey shows that car parking now accounts for around 7% of global airport revenues and is the second biggest source of non-aviation related revenue (equal with real estate) after retail. In 2010, Denver International Airport (DIA), for example, made $118 million in revenue from car parking and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) saw its car parking revenues exceed $97 million.

An article published in Airport World examines what some airports are doing to maximise their revenues.

• Variable rates based on the location of the car park, the level of service provided, covered parking vs open air parking, and VIP or valet parking.
• Ensuring customer service is at the forefront of their business, making the experience as stress-free as possible. This can include the investment in wayfinding services, advance reservation programs and even loyalty-style programs for business passengers and frequent flyers.
• Parking innovation through their infrastructure and services, including online booking systems, and car finding applications on screens and kiosks directing them back to their parked vehicle.
• Pricing mechanisms such as discounted multi-day packages, or internet coupon offers.
• Upselling additional services, including valet services, oil change, car wash or general car inspection.
• A wide range of payment options including ticketless and credit card payment enabling greater efficiencies for customers and the airport.

The full article can be found on the Airport World site here. For any Spanish speaking readers out there, you may also be interested to read a presentation by Parking & Traffic Consultants’ Managing Partner Cristina Lynn, delivered on Airport Parking at the 1^st National Congress of Airports in Argentina, in November 2011. Click here to view her presentation on slideshare. 

A Suzuki Swift Sport ad has been banned in Australia by health and safety authorities, who believe it portrays irresponsible ‘hoon’ driving and linking speeding and dangerous driving with sex appeal.

Officials say the ad depicts unsafe driving by showing the car sliding about in a car park, and includes footage of hard acceleration. The complaint even goes as far to say that the car has its fog lights on in a multi-storey car park, which is against the Australian road rules. 

We came across an interesting article which explores the pre-booked parking phenomenon and why it is commonplace in the UK – accounting for around 20% of airport parking – but almost non-existent around the rest of the world. 

The article’s author, Chris Wortley, asserts that the practice came about from two factors: high prices at airport parking locations and a consumer belief that these prices were too high. Enter a range of competitive players, opening ‘off airport’ car parks at reduced rates. As these competitors had no visibility, hey had to advertise online and in doing so started to take bookings online. Airports started to see their car parking revenue fall and to compete had to introduce their own pre-booking solution.

Online aggregator services (think Webjet) also saw an opportunity and moved to become the one-stop shop for ‘off airport’ car parks – further increasing competition and eroding airport’s parking revenue.

Should operators and airports in Australia be concerned? It seems so, with the UK consolidator sites beginning to spread their reach to Germany and the US as they become part of the online travel booking process, bundling together flights, parking, insurance, car rental and VIP business lounge services all into the one transaction.

It’s certainly an interesting model and may require airports to consider a different way of doing business. Time will tell when and how it rolls out in Australia, but at least there is interesting data and case history available from UK services and operators to draw from.

During the 2012 Intertraffic conference, the American based National Parking Association released their fourth annual Parking in America report. The study measures monthly, daily and hourly rates in cities throughout the United States and Canada, including parking facilities in hospitals, hotels, educational institutions and airports. It also documents rate trends in downtown parking areas and among institutional parking owners and operators.

According to the NPA’s press release and executive summary, the survey found that in 2011, the average price of a premium downtown space across North America increased by 4.5%, from US$15.92 per day to US$16.64. This is a rebound from the 2010 study which showed a 20% decline in rates. At the same time, the average price of the least expensive space in these markets has risen from US$8.48 per day to US$12.57.

The average cost of a premium reserved monthly space dropped for a second straight year from $240 to $199—after a decline in 2010 from $281 to $240. This suggests continued downward pressure on long term parking contracts post-recession. The cost of the least expensive monthly spaces increased from $142 to $166. Overall, 38% of CBD facilities raised rates, with a 40% increase over 2010, whilst 29% held rates steady and another 29% lowered prices.

Across sectors, Airport On-site operators have faired the best as 50% reported increased revenues, consistent with increasing demand for air travel. CBD on-street parking also fared well, with 46% reporting increased revenues and only 19% experiencing decreases. Only 31% of hospital parking facilities reported revenue increases, with 22% reporting decreases.

Interestingly, one key trend that shows consistency is the narrowing of the gap between the least expensive rates and the most expensive rates. The reduction in top rates reflects the decline in the American economy. Compared to Australian rates, however, the rates are very inexpensive – no doubt a reflection of the attachment to the car and the huge volume of parking spaces in the US.

The full results from the survey can be found on the National Parking Association’s website here.

A new type of garage is on sale from architects EcoSpace which turns the once humble and hidden away parking garage into the centrepiece of your back garden.

The modular garage is designed to be a showroom for your car, with features like ambient lighting, floor-to-ceiling glazing and even modular storage systems available. Security is taken care of with roller blinds, and the garages come with natural materials and insulation as standard.

At a cost of $70,000, the AutoSpace offers tailored, contemporary design to your specific needs - so you can have multiple cars, a workshop or office space built in. Perhaps a bed so you never need be away from your car for too long?

The New York Times recently carried an article by Eran Ben-Joseph, a professor of urban planning at MIT and author of ‘Rethinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking’. In it, Ben-Joseph shares his vision for transforming the parking lot into a space beyond simply providing parking availability and convenience.

He believes that the parking lot needs to evolve to include a variety of other uses, mitigate its effect on the environment and give greater consideration to aesthetics and architectural context.

Environmentally, parking lots come with costs – including increased heat from the exposed asphalt pavement, as well as water runoff from the impervious surfaces. A better parking lot might be covered with solar canopies so that it could produce energy while lowering heat, or may be surfaced with a permeable material like porous asphalt and planted with trees in rows like an apple orchard, so that it could sequester carbon and clean contaminated runoff.

Parking lots are also one of the most utilised outdoor spaces – public spaces that people interact with and use on a daily basis, and one of the few places where cars and pedestrians coexist. Better parking lots would expand and embrace this role, providing a range of public activities such as farmers markets and food stalls, contributing as much to their communities as great boulevards, parks or plazas.

Some great concepts, thinking and questioning of the role of parking lots in our society. Read more on the NY Times website here, or more on Ben-Joseph’s book here. 

Car parking faces a continuing squeeze in downtown Auckland streets, following a 20 per cent reduction in spaces over the last five years. Auckland Transport says 843 street parking spaces have gone since 2007, leaving 3417 bays compared with 4260 previously.

According to the NZ Herald, the trend is set to continue as more CBD streets are turned into "shared spaces" – used by cars, bicycles and pedestrians. The business association ‘Heart of the City’ considers the lost spaces a necessary price for improving central Auckland’s urban environment, putting more emphasis on the need to build a better place for people, not just for traffic.

Auckland Transport claims a 26 per cent increase in patronage on key central bus routes, such as the inner and outer link services, since these were re-designed last winter. This is a trade off in return for a 20 per cent reduction in parking.

Cars are still a major consideration and access method for many, with cars last year bringing about 34,500 people into central Auckland each morning compared with 36,500 who arrived on buses, trains, ferries, bicycles or by walking.

Near field communication (NFC) technology allows secure data to be transmitted from a device or object to exchange information or even conduct electronic transactions with a tap. The technology is already embedded in many chip credit cards, and mobile phone providers are moving to roll out handsets which are NFC enabled, allowing users to pay with the tap of a mobile phone. (For more information, refer to our previous Wayfinding Forum posts, ‘Mobile cashless payments by card and phone’, and ‘Google Wallet’s potential effect on parking industry infrastructure’).

Technology site ARN recently polled global mobile industry experts to find that eighty one percent expect that NFC technology will be widely used and adopted for mobile payments in two to five years time. Of these executives, 38 per cent believe consumer concern over security of personal financial information exchanged during mobile transactions is the leading obstacle to large-scale adoption of mobile payments.

They are not wrong, according to UK media site The Drum, which claims that research conducted by VoucherCodes.co.uk has found that most consumers don’t know about NFC technology, and 60% would avoid paying for goods and servies via their mobile even if they were able. A further 17% were interested in the technology but worry about how it works.

VoucherCodes has created a really interesting infographic which attempts to explain the NFC technology and quantify the results of their survey. You can view this in full size by clicking here or on the image below.