Following in the steps of the November 2010 Convention, the Parking Association of Australia held its 13^th event at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre earlier this week.

The event was characterised by a high level of local and international speakers that had the delegates particularly riveted to their seats. The exhibiton, in Hall 6 was sold out with 77 booths occupied by over 50 suppliers of services and equipment which showcased the best in show. Comments from some international visitors indicated that the quality of both the speakers and the exhibitors was equal if not greater than some other events held abroad.

At the AGM, our Managing Partner Cristina Lynn was re-elected to the PAA committee, and at the first committee meeting she was elected Vice President of the PAA. Cristina has demonstrated her continuous commitment to this industry by spending the last four years as Treasurer for the Association and Chair of the organising committee for the 2010 and 2012 conventions.

A new initiative she spearheaded during the convention was a Women In Parking breakfast which was attended by around 50 people (mostly women working in the Australian parking industry). Cristina is confident that this group, linked to the US based Women in Parking association set up a couple of years ago, will continue to grow and prosper over the coming years.

See attached some photos of the event.

The UK’s Telegraph published a great gallery of their top 10 most bike-friendly universities. We thought we would conclude this week’s blog posts with a selection of three of our favourites (of the top ten) below.

At No. 10: Oxford University (image in heading above) offers 2,900 bike spaces dotted around what is the UK's oldest university.

At No. 8: University of York has 3,081 spaces for its 10,000 students. The university has a 'Bike Doctor' to ensure students' bikes receive routine maintenance checks free of charge and free bike hire for up to 48 hours when travelling between King's Manor and the Heslington Campus.

At No. 1: Biking is big business in Cambridge and for the 12,000 or so students there are 6,200 bike spaces dotted around what is the UK's second oldest university. Bike theft is Cambridge's biggest crime with nearly 3,000 stolen from the city centre last year. Buying a decent lock, however, shouldn't be a problem with more than 20 bike shops in the town to choose from.

For more bike friendly universities, view the article in full on the Telegraph’s site here.

Ohio State University has moved ahead with leasing their parking operations to Australian company QIC and US partner LAZ Parking, in a 50 year contract deal worth US $483 million.

According to the Star Tribune, the university pushed the plan as a way of providing cash flow at a time of declining public funding, with the aim of funding a wide range of services, from more faculty members to extra student financial aid. The contract caps annual parking rate increases at 5.5 per cent for the first 10 years, and after that at the lower of either 4 per cent, or the rate of inflation.

With interest, the $483 million will ultimately grow to about $8 billion over 50 years, which will provide $3.1 billion for priority areas including hiring more faculty staff, providing more student aid, supporting the arts and humanities and paying for the university's bus services.

Under the plan, the university will maintain ownership of its parking garages and spaces, which total more than 35,000 spaces.

Students at James Cook University in Cairns this week have staged a protest against the university’s parking situation, insisting the university needs to boost the number of spaces and make them free of charge.

According to Cairns.com.au, about half of the campus’ 979 parking spaces have been restricted to permit holders this year, meaning students have to pay $63 for an annual parking permit. Drivers with a permit however are not guaranteed a spot. Assuming that students attend the university 150 days a year this would equate to all of $0.42 per day! No public transport could possibly compete with this and therefore it is not surprising that students would rather drive!

The university said it is supporting greener commuting by promoting public transport, through subsidising student bus travel and investing in infrastructure to encourage students to use public transport more often.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a concept car that is not only small and compact, but when parked, it folds to reduce space further.

The Hiriko City Car was designed by the MIT’s Changing Places research group to solve the growing congestion problems in cities. The City Car takes up approximately one-third of a normal parking space, meaning you can fit around three and a half City Cars in one conventional space.

The electric car can travel around 130km on one charge, and features electric wheels that are able to spin side to side, allowing the car to spin on the spot.

Below is a video from The Boston Channel, showing the Hiriko City Car in action. The first assembly plant is reported to begin production next year, with 9000 vehicles planned by 2015. Is this a look at the future of parking?

Another year, another summary. In what has become an annual tradition, we try and distil the key news and trends from the Wayfinding Forum blog. It’s no easy job, with just under 200 posts published every year…

Parking rates and sentiment

In 2011, Australian parking rates and the construction industry sentiment were inversely proportional. Sydney announced another on-street rate hike, and Australian parking rates continue to be amongst the most expensive in the world; due to both policy and appreciation of the Australian Dollar.

The value of car parks continues to soar, with an off-street private park adding up to $200k-150k in Sydney, and up to $100k in Melbourne and $80k in Brisbane. It seems the lesson here is to invest in ownership of the space, not in parking your own car!

Meanwhile, the construction industry grows gloomier, with Davis Langdon’s quarterly sentiment monitor declining every quarter throughout the year, and painting an increasing negative outlook on the industry for the future. Gosh, we’re a miserable bunch.

Innovation and technology

In what is most likely the most significant event in the industry this year, the SFPark program in San Francisco was switched on in April, as the world’s first large-scale application of demand-based parking fees. Later in the year, Los Angeles also announced that they would trial demand-based parking fees, to commence in April 2012.

Unlike the sentiment monitor however, on the technology front it appears to have been quite the ‘appy year. Mobile technologies exploded throughout the parking industry in 2011, with apps launched for probably almost anything you can think of. There are now apps for reporting on the misuse of disabled parking spaces; find nearby parking stations, to connect people who want to seel their private off-street parking, show locations of electric recharging stations, probability of getting a parking ticket, remembering where you parked, finding available spaces, to play car parking games, and more.

Another technology to take note of for the future are in ‘near-field communications’, with Google announcing the launch of their ‘Wallet’ product (allowing users to pay bills by tapping their phones to a device); and the emergence of EMV credit Card technologies. Both of these will have a significant impact on how payments are made in our industry into 2012 and beyond.

Government regulation and policy

One of the biggest shifts in policy this year was around minimum parking requirements in inner-city buildings and constructions. Both Sydney and Melbourne led the charge, reducing the minimum required car spaces for new residential and commercial properties, and were followed by Canberra, Adelaide, Wollongong and more. It’s not just governments who see this as the future – apparently the users have also reduced their demand for inner city parking spaces, instead being replaced by increased demand for shower facilities and access to public transport.

Melbourne City Council has led the way with increased technological implementation and installation; this year introducing a number of automated technologies, including in-ground sensors, license plate recognition systems, pay by phone technology, and an electronic monitoring and enforcement system throughout Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank.

Around the country, Wollongong City Council introduced paid parking meters but repealed and amended much of their program, leading us to believe that they should have done their homework a little better before pushing go. Brisbane City Council expanded their on-street metered areas of the city and inner suburbs, and Perth’s announced that inner city churches were made exempt from paying parking taxes. Meanwhile, it was reported that the revenue from Perth’s parking levies were not being reinvested into public transport – the intended destination for these funds.

Politically, the NSW State elections saw a new government installed, with big promises to address transport issues in NSW. Sadly, (?) the No Parking Meters party failed to win a seat.

Transportation and planning

One of the key topics we explored in 2011 was the contrast between European cities and car policies, compared to Australian and American policies. We published a number of articles this year on how Europe is leading the way in moving their societies and cities from car-based to people based, instead investing in alternative means of transport and supporting infrastructure.

Car parking is integral to this process, however: a Parisian study found that most urban trips are influenced by the car parking conditions at their origin and destination; and a subsequent UK study found that effective parking management will provide impetus to shift drivers to more sustainable modes of transport; providing these options are available to them!

Back in Australia, congestion in Sydney in particular continues to increase, with six of the major seven roads to the city getting slower in peak hour commuting. Sydney’s main transport hub of Wynyard saw a lot of focus, due to both the Barangaroo development on the north-western edge of Sydney’s CBD, and the fact that the commuter hub is reaching capacity – for both the train lines and the bus lines.

Alternative and environmental transport

Whilst in 2010 we predicted that electric cars would be a key focus for 2011; it appears that this was shadowed by other non-car transport methods. For us, the most interesting news on electric cars this year came from lifestyle assessment studies published in May, examining not only the electric cars’ output, but the entire chain of powering electric vehicles from production to disposal, concluding that electric vehicles still have a long way to go to overtake the petrol-driven engines for energy efficiency.

Bicycling seems to have been the key focus for urban and transportation planners as an alternative transportation method in 2011. Most of the major (western) city centres have been investing in infrastructure to support bicycling. New York has led the way, implemented their bicycle lane infrastructre program to much press and attention, and it would seem, significantly increased demand. It has seen some teething problems in managing the balance between cars and bicycles, pedestrians and enforcement, but for the most part seems to be going well. London is also seeing significant success in their bike sharing programs, with the Boris Bikes scheme very popular and bicycling on the uptake.

In Australia, Melbourne’s bike sharing scheme was revealed to being significantly underutilised in June, with possible causes identified as pick-up points, poor weather, compulsory helmet laws, and a limited number of bike stations. It is still Australia’s leading city in terms of bicycle usage, and saw a significant police crackdown in June – trying to establish and teach bicyclists that they also need to obey the road rules.

Sydney opened their new dedicated cycleways in April, and has seen a significant increase in users since. We’ve also come across studies proving the health benefits of bicycling, with significant benefits for the population of cities with high usage. Aside from health, the new dedicated bicycle lanes have also seen apparent increased property prices for the houses on the cycleway routes, noted in Melbourne and Sydney.

Putting our bicycling money where our mouth is, PTC’s resident cycling nut Andrew Morse was very active this year, participating in the Sydney Tweed Cycle event in July, and blogged for us comparing the benefits of owning a bicycle to owning a Porsche.

Worth a mention

To wrap, there were some other ‘notable achievements’ in the industry we felt warranted a mention.

Congratulations to both Barbara J. Chance and Ronald Fleming were both named Parking Professionals of the Year.

The car parking structure at 111 Miami Road, Miami, has redefined architectural innovation.

We hope that Los Angeles residents and administrators are able to learn a lesson from LA’s ‘Carmageddon’, that ended up being just pure panic in a city that doesn’t realise it can’t do without a car for a day. 

And one of our favourite examples of parking enforcement for the year was watching the Mayor of Lithuanian capital Vilnius run over an illegally parked car in a tank. That’ll show them!

Over and out!

Thanks to all our readers for your interest and interaction with our blog this year. We hope that you’ve found it useful, inspiring, or entertaining! We wish all of our readers a happy holiday and we look forward to enlightening you in 2012!