Why and how high-sensitivity GNSS receivers will make parking the dominant new transport demand management tool

The availability of high-sensitivity GNSS receivers coupled with newly developed signal processing and sensor fusion has enabled a new, robust solution to measuring vehicle location in urban areas. This, in turn, enables a reliable, wireless, location anonymous, data service for metering road use so that “same-trip = same charge” can now be guaranteed. This same technology can now meter a parked car to its exact lot/spot, exact time and exact per-minute price. As cities and regions begin to deploy congestion pricing systems, there will be a ready-made opportunity for municipalities and private operators to use this same metering and payment service architecture to manage wide-area, infrastructure-free, hands-free parking. On this same data aggregation platform it is possible to layer services for pay-as-you-drive insurance. Such a combined payment services platform reduces parking transaction costs virtually to zero and reduces marginal management costs per spot so dramatically as to allow municipalities and private operators to bring far more parking inventory under profitable management. Interest in parking demand management as a critical transportation demand management tool is increasing. With the publication of Donald Shoup´s work [7] comes an increasing realization that underpriced parking can be a direct contributor to CBD congestion and an invitation to bring private vehicles into the centers of such cites, thereby contributing to interurban and exurban congestion, as well. This paper will detail how parking management can become a critical lever in the fight against urban traffic congestion, as well as briefly discuss the technical innovation that makes this possible.