Flexible Parking for Business: The Ultimate Guide
Developing parking space given future changes will give more alternatives for accommodating future developments. Parking designs that are available lately prevent constructions, carports, or in any event, parking garages from having the option to be repurposed into other uses.
Utilizing a flexible pattern of parking spaces will better consider reuse or deconstruction as transportation modes and designs keep on changing.
What exactly is flexible parking, and how does it help a business?
In a simple term, flexible parking is configuring parking spaces to provide for the needs of your users and your business in general. It’s a new method that employers use to manage their employee parking. In the subsequent section, we will also talk about employee parking management since they are linked with flexible parking in more ways than you can imagine.
Flex parking has grown lately due to the vast improvements in parking management software, leading brands like Indeed.com to adopt the approach at their facilities. More so, with the 2020 pandemic, it has seen an enormous acceleration in adoption.
Unlike flexible parking that allocates car parking spaces to users on request, traditional parking spaces work in two ways defined below.
- Fixed Parking Spaces – Fixed parking spots are provided for key staff. These spots are non-negotiable and cannot be occupied by anyone else aside from the allocated personnel.
- First Come, First Served – This type of parking space is rampant among old paces; spots are allocated to whoever gets to the facility first. Hence, every arrival is timed, and space is given as long as they come early.
The problem with these approaches is that the spaces are left vacant when these employees are unavailable by allocating the fixed spots to top employees. Before the Covid pandemic, most senior employees, on average, spent thirty (30) percent of their time working from home and joining meetings without frequent visits to their place of employment. This, in turn, left several parking spots wasted that could have been allocated to other drivers in need.
On the other hand, we have the first-come, first-serve premise of parking space allocation. These systems were untidy and promoted car commuting to work. Since the employees cannot tell if there will be vacant spots at work, they take their car anyway, hoping there will be vacant space. This causes traffic congestion at the office when there is a short supply as workers drive around looking for an empty spot to park.
Issues Involving Tradition Parking Structures and Flexible Approaches
- Adjustable parking types
For the current array of parking spaces, the structures are designed as a fixed element. Developing them as a mix of different parking types for districts and projects permits parking adaptation to changes in the future. The only way to ensure this is to provide parking spaces that can be repurposed to meet flexible needs for the future.
- Flexible parking structures
Traditional parking designs have several features that make it impossible to repurpose the structure into other uses aside from parking. Usually, you find restrictive features like short floor heights and ramps in the centre of the structure. Designing parking spaces with tall ground floor heights, flat slab constructions, high floor to floor heights, and building width enabling other features like courtyards would make it possible to use the structure in the future.
- Get rid of parking from buildings
We all know that technology changes daily, so parking spaces also have to live up to emerging technology trends. Making sure that parking spaces are separated from the building is increasing the longevity of the structure.
Rather than the traditional underground location of most parking spaces, especially in a commercial building, separating parking spaces can help you avoid the restrictions of having a space that prevents the potential effectiveness of the building long term.
- Localize parking to be receptive to project phasing
Designing the parking space to cater to the initial development phase while serving as future development phases when parking spaces are not needed. The exact number of stalls can help new development. This makes it possible for the parking space to be retrofitted, destroyed and replaced in the long run.
- Parking designs that can be demountable
The materials expected to design parking spaces are carbon-intensive, hard to reuse, and are required in enormous sums. On the off chance that the parking structure and carports are planned considering future dismantling, this could permit more alternatives for reuse of these pieces instead of requiring destruction.
- Design shared parking
With various users parking during multiple times and weeks, businesses ought to make shared parking a priority. In mixed-use development, where a few neighbouring organizations might possess repetitive parking stock, shared parking works to accomplish the little parking needs.
- Parking solution design for fleets
In contrast to current parking structures, fleet vehicles shouldn’t be parked for individual parking vehicles so that some other cars can move autonomously through shared driveways. Fleet-parked vehicles can instead be parked in a stacked arrangement on a consistent ramp with low floor-to-floor height because of their capacity to push forward or convey any request on a case-by-case basis. This would permit more vehicles to fit inside some space and consider car maintenance features and charging stations for these vehicles, especially autonomous cars.
The functionality of flexible parking
With the advent of technology, flexible parking has been the talk among building planners who wish to incorporate parking spaces into the building structure. Flexible parking uses these technologies to allocate parking space to users in real-time according to their needs.
At OPS-COM, we have the proper parking management software to help with these concerns. We have parking lot management software to give you maximum return on your investment from an annual parking permit. ParkAdmin, the OPS-COM parking management software module, manages all permitting issues for parking management firms and the government.
It offers an entire customizable lot and user type and reduces daily tasks hugely. Regardless of the permit type, either virtual parking permit or the traditional printed permit, ParkAdmin gives you control over time allotments, virtual lots, price adjustments and gets you into several vehicle permit associations.
Why do you need flexible parking?
There are monstrous advantages to this method of dealing with parking management. If you’re stressed over any of the accompanying issues, it is advisable to consider flexible parking.
- Running out of parking spots because of large spikes in staff request post-Coronavirus.
- Piling up costly land bills for parking spots that may never be utilized.
Do you need employee parking software for flexible parking?
Trying to find out if you need an employee parking solution is very basic. Just ask yourself these questions.
- Does my organization have many parking spots?
- Does my organization have too few parking spots?
- Do staff register their displeasure about parking?
- Does your organization invest a great deal of energy overseeing parking?
Assuming the appropriate response is Yes, in short, your organization would profit from the employee parking system. The extraordinary thing about purchasing a parking solution is that getting a return on investment is not difficult.
Here’s where we come in… Firstly, let us share with you the features of our OPS-COM ParkAdmin;
- A Self-Serve Parking Portal
ParkAdmin offers customers a fully self-managed interface, with our cloud-based parking system serving as an online portal for online access, registration, purchase, and parking permit payment. Using such an online model will save you time and increase resource use efficiency. ParkAdmin builds revenue opportunities and improves customer experience for all your clients.
- Temporary Parking Hardware Support
ParkAdmin offers hiccup-free temporary parking via the Text2ParkMe feature and integrating CALE and T2 payment terminals. You can also purchase parking permits for long-term use, and you can do this via the integration of several payment providers.
With this, the security and parking officers can operate in a 24/7 model, reducing staff overhead and improving customer experience.
With OPS-COM, parking enforcement is smooth, and you can easily access all the data you need from an Android device. Parking patrol staff get full access to check vehicle plates or monitor vehicles through the LPR (license plate recognition) via a custom system automation.
ParkAdmin helps you create profitability and efficiency
- Setup, track, and inventory permits linked to customer profiles and vehicle
- In the field validation of parking compliance and vehicle details
- Issue and track temporary or hourly parking permits
- Detailed transaction audit logs for data edits and payments
- Limit permit registration access by user type and date ranges
- Multiple real-time parking payment models
- Manage permit prices and parking registration records
- Full data logging and audit tracking
- Automated rollover of permits
How much does it cost to run an employee parking management solution?
Fortunately, this is probably not going to be a million-dollar question except if you are one of the world’s biggest businesses in the industry.
A decent employee management software like ParkAdmin costs $5 – $10 each month per space managed, depending on the business’s features.
On average, a company can expect a return on investment in an overabundance of 4:1 for parking management solution spending.
By engaging organizations to get more from less space, parking solutions can save organizations a truckload of cash and wasted effort.
