volume 10, number 4-april 2005 extension 4 [email protected] exhibition and conference...

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Volume 10, Number 4-April 2005


Volume 10, Number 4-April 2005

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PARKING TODAY is circulated free of charge to those who have aninterest in the parking industry. In order to facilitate delivery, read-ers outside North America are charged $60. Post Office receiptavailable upon request. Single copy price $15.

Manuscripts, articles, photographs, artwork, product releases andall contributed materials are welcomed by PARKING TODAY; how-ever submissions are subject to editing. Advertisers and advertis-ing agencies assume liability for all content (including text, repre-sentations and illustrations of advertisements printed and also anyand all claims made against the publisher. Publisher’s sole respon-

sibility for error in advertising content extends to correction in thesucceeding issue.

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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to PARKING TODAY, P.O.Box 66515, Los Angeles, CA 90066 In Canada to Station A, PO Box54, Windsor, ON N9A 6J5. Publications Agreement Number40826055. ©2005, Bricepac, Inc.

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PARKING TODAY

april 2005 features

volume 10 number 4

14 ‘That’s What We Are, Aren’t We -- a Service Business?’

20 AVI: The Next Generation

22 Is an Alternative Payment System a Way to ‘Mint’ Money?

24 ‘We Say Car Park – They Say Parking Lot’

30 Fabric Shade Systems For Airport Parking: ‘Changing The Mind-Set Of An Industry’

40 Parking Facility Lighting

47 Airport Structures Require Creative Designs for Increasing Demand

52 What Is and What May Be in Airport Parking RevenueControl Technology

Page 30

Point of View ..........................................................................................6

Industry Notes ........................................................................................8

Letters................................................................................................10

PT The Auditor ....................................................................................37

New Products ......................................................................................50

Reader Service Information................................................................57

Classified Advertising..........................................................................58

Dealers, Installers & Suppliers ..........................................................61

Upcoming Events ................................................................................62

regular features

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April 2005 • Parking Today • www.parkingtoday.com6

the parkingblog and may have started to read it.Remember, it changes every day. Just log on to

www.parkingtoday.com and click on “parking blog” (in theleft hand column). Feel free to comment. I’m tough, I cantake it.

Note: I checked parkingblog’s internet traffic onMarch 23 and we have been averaging 400 visits a day sincewe announced the blog. Not too shabby for only twoweeks. Of course, the news about Central’s proposed salemay have had something to do with the interest.

My travels last month took me to Toronto and anotherCanadian cluster of parking companies. I was fortunateenough to be welcomed to the offices of Zeag, Sirit, Mint,

CPE/APE, WPS and Tannery Creek. The highlight of the trip was an

afternoon with Maurice Anderson, headof the Toronto Parking Authority. Hewas able to make time for me in betweenmeetings with the City Council. Mauriceis an interesting person – he comesacross as a good administrator andpolitician, but he is also a technocrat.Many of the parking innovations youtake for granted got their start at theToronto Parking Authority under hisleadership.

He can also go on the record and offthe record so fast that your humblereporter finally just put down his quilland enjoyed the great parking history hetells. Take a look at the interview/article

on Maurice elsewhere in this month’s PT.Oh yes, thanks to my Canadian friends, I was able to

get to play in some snow. What a gas. Check the picturenearby. I was able to see firsthand just how snow affects sur-face lots. There simply aren’t as many spaces available inthe winter as in the summer -- well, at least not in the SnowBelt.

I will be reporting and blogging in April from Birming-ham, England, and the Parkex/Traffex Parking Exhibition.It’s the largest event of its type in the UK, and overwhelmsanything we have here in the US.

And a quick clarification: Last month, in the article onValidations, we quoted Tom Carter at the Toledo Ticket Co.as saying that the peel-off validations are eight times moreexpensive than traditional validations. Tom called to saythat although the higher price might bepreferable to a company’s bottomline, the fact is that they are onlytwice as expensive as the “lick andstick” stamps. Sorry, Tom, our error.

See you next month.

PT on the Net, Canadaand Maurice Anderson

h, the Internet. Can’t live with it, can’t live withoutit. Our little company wouldn’t exist if we couldn’tmove files at the speed of light over coax and glass,

and, yes, even radio waves. The Internet is also a giantarchive of information. Want to know anything, you sim-ply “Google” it and there you are: 100K entries aboutinsects in your grass or how to purchase a front door.

So, PT has decided to begin to focus more on our website and the Internet. Throughout this issue you will findarticles on different aspects of www.parkingtoday.com andhow it can help you in your life as a person who feeds hisor her family through the parking industry.

My focus, however, has been a web log, or blog. Theseonline diaries have been in the news late-ly, having been credited with the demiseof CBS news anchor Dan Rather and,more recently, taking on the L.A. Timesand its coverage of North Korea.

I just read an article that said 7% ofregular Internet users have blogs. Mostare personal. Our web master, Suda, hasone where she keeps her notes concern-ing upcoming work she needs to do forher customers. Suda’s blog isn’t public,but PT’s -- parkingblog -- is.

I am the primary supplier of materialfor parkingblog, but there is a place foryou to agree or disagree or expand on mythoughts. I update it every day, so dropby and check out what I have to say.Mostly, I carry on about parking, butsometimes I talk about something interesting that hap-pened. For instance:

Shoah -- Ever notice that you go your entire life andnever see a certain word in print, but then when you firstsee it, you then see it again the next day, and probablyagain the next. These are usually obscure words not in themainstream.

For instance – I ran across the word Shoah in a book Iam reading that has a tangential connection to the Holo-caust. Shoah is the Hebrew word Jews use for Holocaust. Itsoriginal meaning, according to Webster, is catastrophe.When Jews speak to each other about the Holocaust, it’sthe Shoah.

Sure enough, this morning, in an article in the WallStreet Journal, there it is again, for the second time. In thiscase, it is used in an article about the German Chancellorgiving a speech in Israel. I wonder where it will pop upnext.

By the time you read this, I will have written about 30entries and probably gotten myself into a lot of trouble.Those of you on our e-mail list will have received notice of

John Van Horn

A

point of view

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Clancy Systems Internationalhas entered into a nonbinding letterof intent to acquire Meter Tek. “Webelieve the combination of the twobusinesses will create a business syner-gy leading to enhanced revenues forthe consolidated entity,” said StanWolfson, Clancy President and Chair-man. Meter Tek founders Mark Deeand Joely Carlson will work withClancy during the transition.

Jacqueline Besser, President ofDAJA Inc., a San Francisco-basedtransportation and parking manage-ment company, is the newly electedpresident of the Parking Associationof San Francisco, which comprisessome 50 private parking-facility own-ers and operators and affiliated com-panies. "One of the major issues facingour industry locally is additional citytaxes," said Besser, whose activeinvolvement in the San Franciscopolitical arena is expected to benefitthe association. "Our primary goal thisyear is to work proactively with thecity toward a more positive resolutionof this issue.”

In related news, DAJA Inc. and itspartner, ShuttlePort, were recentlyawarded a four-year renewal of thecontract to provide curbside-manage-ment services for San Francisco Inter-national Airport. The new contracttook effect Feb. 1.

Digital Payment Technologies, asupplier of revenue management solu-tions for the global parking industry,has appointed Andrew Scott to thepost of Chief Executive Officer. Scottbrings many years of experience incorporate finance as regional head of

industry notes

investment banking at CIBC WoodGundy, followed by several years infinance, mergers and acquisitions withThe Loewen Group.

Next Realty and Apollo RealEstate Advisors acquired two majorparking facilities in Philadelphia’supscale Rittenhouse Square neighbor-hood, Next Realty Managing PartnerAndrew Hochberg announced. Ajoint partnership of Next PhiladelphiaParking and Apollo Real Estate Advi-sors purchased the Eglin Garages at1700 Chancellor St. and 1616 SamsonSt. for an undisclosed sum from aninstitutional investor. Robert Caplin,principal of Next Realty, representedboth Apollo and Next in the transac-tion. Next Realty has negotiated a 30-year lease agreement between Hart-ford Parking, LLC and ParkingCompany of America Airport, LLC,on three parking lots encompassing5,300 spaces near Bradley Internation-al Airport in Hartford, Conn. Thethree lots, which will provide bothvalet and self-parking, are locatedalong the Ella Grasso Turnpike.

Nova Bus has obtained ISO14001 certification for environmen-tal management of its operations --the first North American heavy-dutybus manufacturer in the urban trans-portation sector to do so. “We arevery proud of having achieved theISO 14001 certification,” said GillesDion, President and CEO. “Thishighlights Nova Bus’ commitment tothe implementation of best practicesin environmental and waste manage-ment, noise and waste-emissionscontrol, and prevention of ecological

accidents.”

The Parking Network recentlypromoted Franklin Laso to a Directorin its Municipal Tax Division in Mia-mi. He manages the administration ofthe $14.5 million Parking SurchargeProgram for the city of Miami. Also,TPN has added Terri Brown as anAnalyst in its Professional ServicesGroup. Brown has more than 20 yearsof accounting and finance experience.And the company recently promotedLila Hutto to Junior Associate in itsProfessional Services Group, head-quartered in Austin, TX. The companyalso announced an expansion of itsMunicipal Tax Division with the cre-ation of a Los Angeles, Californiaoffice location. Steve G. Quon recent-ly joined LA office as an Associate. Pri-or to joining The Parking Network,Steve worked as a Litigation SupportAnalyst for Duckor Spradling Metzger& Wynne where he was an integralmember of the team that accuratelyprocessed thousands of records for anational retail chain in a class actionlawsuit. TPN also recently added JasonE. Kummer to the team in LA as anAssociate where he will assist city offi-cials with the analysis and collectionof the City’s parking surcharge tax.

Citation Management, aprovider of parking citation issuance,processing and collection solutions tomunicipal agencies, has appointedRon Given as Manager-New BusinessDevelopment. He brings to the posi-tion 15 years of experience in munici-pal parking citation processing andcollections operations.

Pro Park LLC, has announced the

TANNERY CREEK SYSTEMS, INC.Parking Enforcement Automation

Phone: 1.905.738.1406email: [email protected]

www.tannerycreeksystems.com


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April 2005 • Parking Today • www.parkingtoday.com 9

assignment of Nick DiSalvo to V.P.of Operations. DiSalvo has over 10years of experience in the parkingindustry. The Company alsoappointed Anthony Marconi asBusiness Manager and WilliamScharr as Business DevelopmentManager. Marconi will draw onprevious experiences in real estateand community development, andScharr on his background in sales inthe communication and energymanagement industries.

Harmon Inc., a specialty glaz-ing contractor, has expanded Gen-eral Manager Mike Robinson's ter-ritory to include all of Ohio, West-ern Pennsylvania and Northern Kentucky. Responsibilities includestaff supervision at the Cincinnatiand Cleveland facilities and over-seeing the company's new con-struction, renovation and glassservices operations for customersthroughout Ohio.

McGann Software Systems,the industry leader in parking soft-ware solutions, has named VinceWalls as Project Manager-NationalAccounts. He comes to the compa-ny with nearly 26 years of parkingexperience. Walls was a foundingmember and chairman of the Auto-mated and Mechanical ParkingAssociation. He is a co-author of“The Guide to the Design andOperation of Automated ParkingFacilities.”

Skidata presses ahead with theimplementation of new organiza-tional structures introduced lastyear. Following the appointment ofRobert Weiskopf as head of thenew Car Access division in 2004,marketing expert Urs Grimm willtake over in July as head of the Peo-ple Access division, a newly createdposition. He also will serve as amember of the Executive Board.The company said his appointmentreflects the willingness of its boardto focus on customer needs and tofoster customer relationships.

Parking Research & Solutions,extensive knowledge of resort andvisitor-based parking systems, hasbeen selected by Sedona, AZ, toconduct a comprehensive parkingstudy and to evaluate parking pat-


Continued on Page 46

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An On Street PrimerGreat article! It's about time someone did an even, un-

biased evaluation of the pay options for the On-Street park-ing customer. I would like to add, that after 22 years as aparking professional there are a couple of things you forgotto include in your "Primer" in regards to parking meters.First and possibly most important is the fact that everyoneknows what a parking meter is for and how to use one.Even visitors from other countries are aware of and knowhow to use them. This can't always be said of a "Pay andDisplay" or a "Pay by Space" machine. Also, if the customeris new to the area, they may not be aware of the machinesor the need to pay for parking unless they happen to get aspace close to a machine.

The other big thing is that the display is easier to readon the parking meter than it is on most of the Pay and Dis-play or Pay by Space machines. Even with a shade over thedisplay screens, some of them are nearly impossible to readat night or in bright sunlight. I agree with you that parkingmeters clutter the sidewalk, but if your enforcement, staff,and most important of all your customers are familiar andhappy with the system in place, WHY CHANGE IT???

Thanks Again,W.A. "BILL" LO PRESTI

City of Long Beach (RET.)


Pay and DisplayVS Pay by SpaceEditor, Parking Today:

Referencing the article "On-Street Parking: A Primer".A good overview, but you omitted some importantpoints;

1) Any comparison of Pay and Display with Pay bySpace must include the painting and maintenance ofspace numbers, leaves, snow cover, etc.

2) "When a machine goes down, many spaces areaffected" is stated in PbyS and P&D as a minus. I think itwould be fair to say that sometimes this may not be anissue because the users can go to the meter across thestreet. With PbyS lots, most of the time a user can use anymachine in the lot, even on different floors.

Thanks and regards,Robert J Traynor

Project Manager/Support SpecialistParkeon, Inc.

AN On Street Primer

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he Canadian Parking Foundation, in associationwith the University of Stuttgart, will present thefifth biannual World Parking Symposium June 26-

29 in Stuttgart, Germany. The symposium will address the issues of mobility, traf-

fic congestion, environmental quality and the need for liv-able urban communities.

As the home of DaimlerChrysler, Porsche, Bosch andmany other transport-related multinational firms, Stuttgartis “The World Capital of Mobility,” with much to offer theparking and transportation professional.

Set in a lush valley ringed with vineyards and thickforests, the 13th century City of Stuttgart is the capital ofBaden-Württemberg, and may well be the greenest city inEurope. Its 600,000 citizens pride themselves on their envi-ronmentalism.

Experiencing a moderate climate and proximity to theBlack Forest, the Swiss Alps, Lake Constance and the head-waters of the Danube, Stuttgart radiates the unique heritageof the Swabian region. It also is one of Germany's top wine-growing centers, home to the annual Cannstatter Volksfest(Germany's second-largest Oktoberfest celebration) andmany mineral spas and vacation resorts.

The symposium will be hosted at the Conference Hotelof the German Telecom CorporationCorp. near thegrounds of the University of Stuttgart. Meals and accom-modations will be available at this state-of-the-art confer-ence facility.

In addition to plenary sessions and summaries, the fol-lowing speakers have been scheduled for the World ParkingSymposium:

• Lessons From COST Action 342Parking Policy and the Effects on Mobility and theLocal EconomyTeun de Wit, Chair MC, COST Action 342, Netherlands

• Tackling Car Park CrimeTony Segwick National Car Parks, UK

• People, Parking and CitiesMichael Manville and Donald Shoup University of California, Los Angeles, US

• Examination of the Use of Roadside ParkingLots in Urban AreasS. Basbas, M. Pitsiava-Latinopoulou, Th. Andrianos Aristotle University, Greece

• Parking Strategies in Eastern EuropeSjoerd Stienstra Sj. Stienstra Adviesbureau stedelijk verkeer BV, Netherlands

• Bicycle Parking – the Swiss WayThomas Braunwalder Vice President, Zeag AG, Switzerland

• Parking Strategy Developments in SelectedAustralian CitiesPeter Johnstone ARRB Transport Research, Australia

• Integrated Parking Policy Doesn’t HappenOvernightBram van Luipen, KPVV Platform, NetherlandsMarco Martens, Ecorys-Avm, Netherlands

• The Price of Municipal ParkingIan Maher Toronto Parking Authority, Canada

• Psychological Aspects of Illegal ParkingAlejandra Pastor, Universidad de la Sabana, ColombiaManfred Wacker, University of Stuttgart, Germany

For more information and registration, log on to www.worldparkingsymposium.ca.

T

World Parking Symposium Scheduled for Stuttgart in June

PT

Hotel Developer's ParkingChanges Irk City Council

In a big departure from its proposal for developing aConvention Center headquarters hotel in San Antonio,TX, FaulknerUSA wants to drop plans to build 500 pub-lic parking spaces underground. Instead, the Austin-based firm is looking to pay the city to build the spacesoff-site, said Assistant City Manager Chris Brady.

The city required the construction of 500 publicspaces because the HemisFair parking garage will bedemolished to make way for the hotel, which will beattached to the Convention Center. Brady said negotia-tors are just beginning to discuss what it would pay thecity to create the spaces.

FaulknerUSA wants to build 140 condominiumsatop the hotel, and it would need 200 parking spaces forresidents. Brady said the company hadn't included thespaces in its main proposal because its condo plans atthe time were an alternative.

Adding the 200 spaces now, Brady said, "has createdsome pressure" on the firm's original plans to build1,048 spaces underground, including 500 for the public.That's why the company wants the city to build thepublic-access spaces away from the Convention Center.The hotel operator, Hyatt, wants 750 spaces for guests.

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By John Van Horn

An interview with Toronto’s Maurice Anderson

‘That’s What We Are, Aren’tWe -- a Service Business?’Editor’s Note: Chatting with MauriceAnderson, head of the Toronto ParkingAuthority, is like talking to your favoriteuncle. He says some things that are mostreasonable, some things that are outrageous.But you dismiss him at your peril. Duringthe three hours PT spent with Maurice, wewere on and off the record so many times welost count. We finally agreed to let him peekat the story to be sure we got it right. He’sbright, he’s fun, he’s irreverent. He doesn’tremind you of the kindly, gentle archetypicalCanadian. He tells it as he sees it, and pullsno punches. He knows what he wants andhow to get it. A consummate politician, hecertainly understands the ins and outs ofToronto’s City Hall. The fact that his organ-ization puts nearly $95 M in gross revenueper year and adds $60 M in taxes and park-ing revenues into the city’s coffers can’t hurt.An additional $70 M is generated from on-street parking and traffic offenses. He’s sec-retary treasurer of the IPI and head of theCanadian Parking Foundation, which spon-sors the World Parking Symposium everyother year. We spoke with him in March inToronto.

“When we installed the first pay-on-foot system in the city in 1995, I wentdown to the garage at midnight on thefirst day to see it turned on. I wanted tobe there and help with any parkers thatneed instruction. Can you believe it? Thefirst guy had a problem. He came up, fid-dled with the ticket dispenser, got frus-trated, cursed and stormed off. Turnedout he was the president of the unionthat represented the cashiers.”

It’s now a decade later and Maurice Anderson, head of theToronto Parking Authority, has 5 garages running pay-on-foot,with online credit card processing, credit card in and out fea-tures and monitored from a central location in the city.

“We were the first [Parking Authority] in North Ameri-ca with online credit card processing and the credit card inand out feature that is prevalent today. Then it took 15seconds to authorize the transaction; now it takes 2. I feltthat if we were going to take credit cards, we had to do itright. None of the systems in those days did online author-

ization in real-time. I insisted that ours did, and our vendorstepped up to the plate. …

“Problems? Of course there were some problems, butwe expected that. We were on the very cutting edge of tech-nology at that time. But we stuck with it and so did they,and we worked it out. Parking is a business where therearen’t enough sites to work through the problems. Eachcompany has to fight through each installation until theyget it right. That takes time. …

“I saw a pay-on-foot machine I liked at a trade show --Continued on Page 16

Maurice Anderson

pt 0405 3/24/05 9:51 AM Page 14

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the Canadian Parking Association show. It had a lot of greatfeatures. I insisted that it give change in banknotes. It did,but it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. The banknotedispenser was tacked on the side of the unit like an after-thought. But it did what I wanted.

“I asked about the machine having the capability ofprocessing credit cards on line and allowing the feature toenter and exit with a credit card. The fellow in the boothtold me to come back tomorrow. Turns out he spent thenight on the phone with his engineers in Europe and thenext day had my answer. He said it would take a year; it

took two. But we got it going. And eventually, it had billacceptors and changers internal to the system. Oh, yeah,the bill acceptors are Canadian. They are cheaper, smallerand work as well as the others.

“In the beginning, we couldn’t use credit card in/out;the authorization was too slow. However today, with the 2-second authorization, it works fine. In 1995, about 20% ofour transactions were credit card. Today, we are well over50%.”

PT was told by the manufacturer that the reason it was ableto do online verification in Canada was due to a quirk in theCanadian phone system that allowed a compression feature tospeed up the transaction time. That wasn’t available in the USat the time. Of course, online Internet processing today solvesthis problem.

“It took us two years to get all the bugs out of the sys-tem and to get it accepted completely by the citizens ofToronto. Now we are converting all the garages that can beconverted to POF and all new garages are designed for pay-on-foot.

“The benefits? Well, from a parker’s point of view, itreduces exit time. It reduces our complaints from parkersabout attendants, and it reduces staff.

“We find that the minute POF goes into a garage, ourcomplaints about that garage go to near zero. Think aboutit. Most of the complaints you have in garages are causedby the people who work there. If you lower the interactionbetween the people and the parkers, you lower the com-plaints.

“We haven’t hired a new cashier in seven years. In ’98,we had 135 cashiers; now we have 69. We have moregarages, fewer cashiers. We had no layoffs. We simplymoved people to different positions and let naturalturnover reduce our staff.

“We moved ahead with our on-street operation, too.We were the first city in North America to have an integrat-ed online on-street pay-and-display program. We use it in

our surface lots as well as on-street. As we replaced singlespace meters with on line pay and display machines,staffing, maintenance and enforcement got easier.

“With the off line units we had to check each machineearly, around seven in the morning, to be certain themachine was working and full of tickets and the like. Withthe new ones, we simply start our enforcement rounds at10 AM or so. They tell us at the central monitoring stationif they have a machine that has a problem and dispatch atechnician. That two or three hour difference in puttingmanpower on the streets is a big savings, plus it frees upour officers to do the enforcement job properly.”

Anderson handles enforcement of his off-street surface lotshimself, with the city police enforcing on-street violations. Hehas submitted a proposal to take over on-street enforcement.

“It’s a case of attitude. The police are measured by thenumber of tickets they write. If they see a meter down or amachine not working, what is their motivation to report it?They have to write tickets, generate revenue from thatdirection. They see no upside in fixing a broken meter.

“The Authority enforcement officers look at it differ-ently. We want people to pay their parking fees and we goout of our way to be certain all the equipment is working.In addition, if people have issues with their parking tickets,we can’t help them. They call us, we refer them to CityHall. We want to be able to make the parking experienceeasier. We give those that haven’t paid a courtesy envelopeand most pay up. We simply ask for the amount due. Ifthey get three envelopes in three months, we tack on the$30 ticket. Most pay up.

“I had to laugh – When we moved to Pay and Displayfor on-street in a certain downtown area, I got a call from amerchant complaining about the new system. What wasthe complaint? When we removed the meters, we alsoremoved the posts. What are meter posts used for, besidesholding up a meter? Bike racks. People were complainingthat there was no place to lock up their bikes. Now we leavea few posts on each street for that purpose.

“We had 16,000 meters when we began to switch to P-and-D. We now have about 3,500 left. … Don’t let anyonefool you. You can put 5-10% more cars in the same areawith P-and-D. We don’t mark the spots, and people park asthey can.

“Once again, we are almost complaint-free. Withmeters, store owners are repeatedly asked for change. Now,with the credit card facility, that goes away. About 35% ofour parkers on-street pay by credit card.

“The beauty of both pay-and-display and pay-on-footis that it puts the onus on the customer. They now areempowered. They have many different payment options.They don’t have to argue with a cashier. They have a receiptin their car that tells them when their parking is up. And ifthey get a citation, then there is something in writing theycan check to see if they were treated fairly.

“What’s next? We are working on an online chip cardthat businesses can use to track the parking costs of theiremployees who are required to move about the city andpark often every day. It’s in trial now, and I think it willwork just great! It’s one more way to give service to our cus-tomers. That’s what we are, aren’t we -- a service business.”

The Toronto Parking Authority uses Zeag and Parkeon equip-ment. John Van Horn, editor of Parking Today, can be reachedat [email protected].

‘That’s What We Are, Aren’t We -- aService Business?’from Page 14

PT

‘The police, by their nature,are looking for violations.’

pt 0405 3/24/05 9:51 AM Page 16

volume 10, number 4-april 2005 extension 4 [email protected] exhibition and conference...

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