To drive revenue, cities turn to tech to fix their parking problems

City parking is a pain for drivers and cities both. Drivers searching for the most convenient spot for the least cost add to congestion and greenhouse gas emissions when they repeatedly circle the block looking for an open space. Sometimes they double park, overstay a spot’s time limit or park in bus lanes or safety zones. On the city side, enforcement requires staff for ticketing or arranging for towing or installation of a boot. Equipment and parking lots must be maintained, safety ensured, and payments easy to submit and collect.

But for all the headaches parking causes, it can be a major source of revenue for cities. State and local governments raised $3 billion from parking charges in 2020, according to Census Bureau data. That’s why many are turning to technology to help drive parking reforms aimed at streamlining enforcement and increasing revenues and environmental friendliness.

Los Angeles, for instance, is preparing to test artificial intelligence to crack down on drivers who park in bus-only and priority lanes.

This summer or early fall, 100 of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 1,800 buses will carry AI-powered cameras. Mounted on their windshields, the cameras can spot vehicles illegally parked in priority lanes. Although they monitor for violations continuously, they also record only when they spot a potential problem. That footage goes to the city's Department of Transportation Parking Enforcement Division, which assists LA Metro with curb management. A human then reviews the video to determine whether the division should send a citation to the person the vehicle’s license plate indicates the car is registered to.

“The primary benefit of having a bus-only lane is that our buses go faster, and when people stop and block the lanes, our buses can’t go as fast as they potentially could” said Anthony Crump, executive officer for community relations at LA Metro. This not only disrupts the bus schedule, but can delay as many as 75 riders per bus from getting to work, school or appointments on time. 

A major culprit in blocked lanes is the increase in deliveries since the pandemic, he said, be they from restaurants through services such DoorDash and Uber Eats or online purchases arriving by UPS, FedEx and Amazon. E-commerce deliveries increased by 25% in 2020, according to a World Economic Forum report, and has not changed much since.

Currently, bus-lane violators are ticketed, but only if a parking enforcement officer sees the offense happen. “With limited resources and the number of bus-only lanes throughout the city, we may not get everyone,” Crump said.

Los Angeles County is conducting the pilot with a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation Grants Program. A law passed in 2021, cleared the way for the program when it legalized the use of video imaging to enforce parking violations.

“Our goal is to provide a really fast and efficient service for our passengers or our customers, and hopefully, this will help us achieve that goal,” Crump said of the AI.

Hyattsville, Maryland, is looking to catch those who abuse 15-minute free parking spaces. It installed SafetySticks—solar-powered motion-sensing cameras—that take a photo of a car’s license plate when it  pulls in and when it leaves. If the time stamps on the photos are more than 15 minutes apart, the vehicle has been parked longer than 15 minutes and the owner will get a $35 fine in the mail. Somerville, Massachusetts, piloted the same technology last year. During a 67-day test of three devices, the city averaged seven violations a day. 

Other cities are homing in on ways to streamline the parking payment process. Starting May 8, New York City’s Transportation Department began rolling out paperless parking meters for the city’s 80,000 metered spaces that let drivers enter their license plate numbers instead of displaying a receipt on the vehicle’s dashboard. The systems replace the roughly 2,500 miles worth of receipts the city’s parking meters print annually—saving enough paper “to stretch from New York City to Los Angeles,” according to a press release.

The upgrade will also make it easier for drivers to pay for parking. In addition to outfitting the meters with contactless tap credit card payment capture, the city integrated them with the current ParkNYC app, a mobile payment application with more than 1.8 million users.

Delray Beach, Florida, is working to digitize information about parking spots in 16 surface lots and 1,200 on-street spaces. Sensors will be placed in the parking spots, which will convey real-time availability data to the city’s website, where drivers can see in real time what spaces are open.

Arlington, Virginia, is working on a similar project to better manage its parking. With 4,200 smart parking sensors installed at metered spots along two major corridors, the city is collecting data on parking duration, demand over time and turnover. With that information, officials can test demand-based pricing to encourage more efficient use of resources. The data also supports an app and a website that provides insights on real-time parking availability. 

Cities are looking to parking technology to help them free up congestion, boost revenue and reap savings from more efficient parking practices, according to Tony Jordan, founder of the Parking Reform Network strategy group. There’s plenty of opportunity for improvement  because there is so much unmanaged and underpriced parking, he said.

For instance, parking may be free after 7 p.m. in a restaurant district where people linger until much later. That’s lost revenue. Plus, free parking increases the likelihood that people will drive to the destination, creating traffic and congestion as they circle the area looking for a spot.

“People want to find a space when they want it, and where they want it,” Jordan said.

App-based curb management can help optimize parking. For instance, cities can adjust costs using demand pricing. But apps aren’t interoperable, so drivers might need to download several to navigate parking in neighboring cities, Jordan said.

“There’s an interesting development in Britain, where the national government is requiring interoperability among all the apps,” he said. “I think there’s an opportunity in the United States maybe to do that as well.”

Last month, Miami Beach took a step in that direction, implementing PayByPhone, an app that nearby Miami, Coral Gables, Surfside and Sunny Isles Beach also use. In fiscal 2023, Miami Beach collected nearly $28 million in parking meter revenue, $24 million of which came through its previous contract with ParkMobile, another app.