Problem #1: Drivers with disabilities may voluntarily limit their mobility to certain areas because they are not sure if they can park their car near where they need to go.
Problem #2: Drivers with electric vehicles may leave those cars at home and drive their gasoline powered vehicles instead because they don’t know where the EV charging stations are, and whether there is space available.
Solution tested: Parking sensors embedded into EV parking and Disabled Driver parking spaces; Mobile App; Alexa voice integration.
Questions to be answered: Where are these spaces? How often are they utilized? How long is each space occupied? Which days and times are busiest? Which times are least? What’s the best way to communicate parking space availability? How will parking space utilization change with if we can share this information with drivers?
Project Update (January 25, 2019)
The pilot has been running since June 1, 2018. Key learnings to date:
- Current parking capacity for EV and disabled drivers is sufficient to meet current demand levels.
- EV parking spaces are underutilized outside of core hours and on weekends.
- County employee electric vehicles are parked an hour longer (on average) than their public counterparts.
- Using voice commands to find available parking shows promise as long as the commands are short and simple.
Next steps
- Continue to collect data after addressing sensor installation issues.
- Continue to refine voice commands and interaction.
- Communicate after hours availability of EV parking spaces to nearby apartment complexes.
- Integrate parking availability information with nearby downtown parking information systems
- Study whether county employee EV parking patterns are impacting demand.
- Identify other opportunities for parking pilots (e.g. Predictive parking availability, etc.)
Report: SMC Garage Parking Pilot Summary