Kick off the new year with the latest issue of IPMI’s Parking & Mobility!

The first issue of 2021 features contributions by Walker’s Chairman and CEO, John Bushman, PE, and several of our in-house industry experts. Read their articles below:

• “Surveying the Current Curb Management Technology and Policy Landscape” by Chrissy Mancini Nichols, Bernard Lee, and Kevin White, AICP
• “The IT world has migrated to cloud — what about parking technology?” by Peter Filice
• “Casting a Long Shadow” featuring John Bushman, PE (Co-Chairman of IPMI’s Planning, Design and Construction Committee)

Or read the full issue here!

Written by Drew Willsey, AICP 

Macroeconomic Trends of COVID-19 and Their Potential Effects on Parking Behavior & Demand in the Mid-Term and Long Term

The emergence of the COVID-19 global pandemic in March 2020 has changed much of our daily lives and how we interact with our environments.  After “stay-at-home” orders were put into place by numerous cities, counties, and states across the country, the economy suffered considerably.  Within a matter of days, the freeways were nearly empty.  The roads were nearly empty.  And most of the parking lots were empty.

As summer continues, and the United States and Europe are only in the mid-stages of emerging from stay-at-home guidelines, there is increasing uncertainty about what lies ahead in the coming months and years for nearly every aspect of life and business.  For the transportation planning industry, commonly-held facts about travel, mobility, habits, demand, and behavior have been called into question.  This includes calling into question what the future holds, in both the short term and the long term, for parking planning and design.  As the nation sorts through reams of data and conducts analysis trying to understand it all, the future of transportation, and therefore of parking, has doubtless been on the minds of every public planner and private developer.

As an industry leader in parking and transportation planning, Walker Consultants’ analysts and consultants have begun the process of considering what the future may hold for our industry.  Of course, as of this writing, uncertainty remains very high.  Nonetheless, it is essential that Walker attempt to at least establish a framework for thinking about and analyzing what may happen, and how the many variables that influence parking demand and travel behavior might vary relative to one another.

To that end, Walker has performed research on a wide array of macroeconomic factors that we feel are significant to the transportation planning and parking planning industry.  This research encompasses a diversity of reliable and credible sources that go far beyond parking, with over 50 magazine articles, news stories, studies, and industry publications cited.  Based on our research and analysis, a picture of what the future may hold, both in the mid-term and the long term, has begun to emerge as it relates to parking demand.  This article sets out to illustrate that picture based on some key economic sectors and other areas of focus.

The data provided and conclusions drawn may change as the pandemic, and resulting understanding of its economic effects, continues to evolve.  Walker will continue to monitor current developments through the rest of the year.

The macroeconomic factors that Walker performed research for have been grouped into nine different overall categories:  retail & e-commerce, air travel & tourism, hotels, restaurants, universities & higher education, hospitals & healthcare, mode split & public transit, oil prices & driving, micromobility, and transportation network companies (TNCs).

For purposes of these conclusions, the “short term” means the remainder of 2020.  The “mid-term” is the time period in which the pandemic situation begins to achieve permanent resolution, likely meaning whenever a vaccine becomes available and is disseminated across the population to such a degree that “herd immunity” is achieved.  The “long term” means the period after the pandemic is over and related concerns are no longer playing a substantial role in affecting behavior or policy.

Retail & E-Commerce

• Parking demand may decline across the board for all brick-and-mortar retail depending on whether substantial increases in online retail sales volumes persist.
• Shopping malls and department stores may need less parking, presenting future opportunities for further repurposing and diversification of these land uses, which would necessitate right-sizing of parking supplies for those uses.
• However, declines in in-person retail activity may simply accelerate the trend of diversifying land uses at some shopping malls and retail centers, which will have the effect of offsetting decreases in parking demand for those establishments in the long term.
• Parking demand may remain steady or increase at key big box retail outlets and discount superstores.
• An increase in curbside pickup and “click and collect” services at many retailers may necessitate the implementation of curb management strategies and result in repurposing of some parking for those facilities to accommodate those services.
• If sale of goods and retail continue to migrate online, increased attention to curbside management and reallocation of travel lanes in the public right of way may be required in dense areas to accommodate increased delivery activity.
• While Black Friday as a shopping event may never be what it once was even in the long term, the importance of brick-and-mortar retail during the last week before Christmas, as well as the rising popularity of “click and collect” services, may mean that design day parking demand levels at many retail locations will remain unchanged or only see modest decreases.
• Long term decreases in retail parking demand may be offset by the diversification and repurposing of empty retail space to other uses, including residential uses.

Air Travel & Tourism

• Parking demand at US airports is likely to remain substantially lower into the long term, especially at continental airports that serve international travelers, such as SFO or JFK.
• Changes in travel habits, particularly for business travelers, as well as international travel restrictions, decreases in capacity, and fare increases may persist through the long term.
• Due to such changes, parking demand at airports may not return to pre-2020 levels for years as passenger volumes remain decreased.
• The decrease in parking demand resulting from decreased passenger volumes may be cushioned somewhat by a switch back to driving and parking, away from TNCs and from public transit.
• Parking demand decreases at close-in parking facilities typically owned and/or operated by the airport may be further cushioned by a decrease in demand for parking at off-airport facilities, as passengers may not wish to share a shuttle with others.

Office & Telecommuting

• Within the first few months of the pandemic, high percentages of both employees and employers have expressed satisfaction with working from home, as technology and Internet speeds have both matured to a point where they enable levels of productivity equal to and sometimes surpassing those seen while physically present at the office.
• With few to no negative effects on work productivity resulting from increased telecommuting, parking demand at office buildings may remain lower than it was pre-pandemic through the mid-term and long term.
• Prolonged social distancing measures may result in lower densities of employees per square foot, which would further decrease office parking demand for new office leases.
• The long-term likelihood of sustained increases in telecommuting may be further boosted by the associated cost savings for the employee, where not having to commute on a full-time basis can enable employees to live in less expensive areas that may be further away while also saving money on fuel.
• The employer can also realize cost savings from increased telecommuting due to the downsizing of the amount of office square footage needed, which would result in cheaper rent.
• However, depressed parking demand at some office buildings may be partially offset in the long term by the conversion of vacant office space to multi-family residential dwelling units, particularly in high-residential-demand cities and their respective high-density business districts where the sharing of parking resources is viable.

Hotels

• Parking demand at travel-orientated and budget hotels should normalize or even increase soon after the crisis has subsided.
• Parking demand at luxury hotels and hotels that serve patrons who flew into and out of their destination might take longer to normalize.
• Event parking demand at conference-orientated hotels may remain substantially decreased well into the future, even after conferences return, as the scope and scale of conferences is expected to be scaled back.

Restaurants

• Lasting increases in the number of people who plan on cooking at home more (especially when combined with increased telecommuting habits) could mean a decrease across the board in restaurant parking demand.
• Fast-casual restaurants may see persistent increases in parking demand.
• Increases in online ordering, delivery, and curbside pickup of food from all types of restaurants may persist, which may necessitate implementation of curbside management strategies and reallocation of self-parking to accommodate curbside pickup.
• While a long lasting or permanent decrease in restaurant visits may decrease parking demand in aggregate, the potential decrease of the number of restaurants that are in business after COVID-19 may have an offsetting effect, where total restaurant demand is distributed across fewer restaurants.
• Parking demand at fast food or drive-thru-orientated establishments is likely to remain unchanged or even increase.

Universities & Higher Education

• The degree to which online learning will affect parking demand in the long term is dependent on how many prospective students are willing to substitute the fully immersive in-person experience with an online learning experience.
• It is likely that at least some increases in online learning will persist, as more students may choose to learn in a mixed online/in-person environment as online learning becomes normalized.
• Parking demand at traditional university campuses that are more dorm-orientated is likely to be less affected than at commuter-orientated campuses or community colleges, as students at such facilities may be more likely to prefer online learning.
• The coming economic recession may result in persistent or accelerated decreased enrollment figures, which would decrease parking demand in a corresponding manner in the long term, all other trends being equal.
• The inability of new international students to enroll will further contribute to enrollment figure declines.
• Even without a prolonged recession, parking demand in the mid-term could be affected drastically unless the 2020 – 2021 school year carries on in a mostly traditional fashion.
• Decreased parking demand may be somewhat offset in the short and mid-terms by more students choosing to drive and self-park instead of utilizing campus shuttle systems and other alternative modes of transit.
• Decreases in demand and enrollment at schools that survive the pandemic may be further offset by the closure and consolidation of dozens of campuses across the country.

Hospitals & Healthcare

• In the short to mid-term, parking demand activities at hospitals is likely to remain abnormal.
• The need for temporary parking management plans may arise and persist throughout 2020, especially as a preventative/cautionary measure against a potential “second wave” of infection.
• Potential increases in outpatient and clinic parking demand resulting from a backlog may be offset by decreases in demand from in-person doctor’s office visits moving virtual.
• In the long term, there is likely to be a permanent decrease of parking demand at medical office buildings due to persistence and normalization of virtual visits for routine care and consultations.
• The sudden and prolonged inability of hospitals to operate valet parking for patients and visitors due to safety concerns may cause significant disruptions to hospital parking supplies, particularly at facilities that already rely on valet parking to help alleviate supply and demand imbalances.

Mode Split & Public Transit

• Decreased use in the short and mid-term of public transit due to increases in single-occupancy vehicle usage may partially offset decreases in parking demand across many land use categories resulting from economic recession or higher gas prices.
• Decreases in public transit demand may persist into the long term.
• In order to survive, public transit systems may have to evolve, especially in cities where transit usage was low to begin with.
• While fixed rail systems that operate in a hub-and-spoke model may remain more resilient as competitors to daily commuting, many fixed bus routes may change to an access-a-ride or call-n-ride format, where there are more, but smaller, options that could cover most or all of the first/last mile.

Oil Prices & Driving

• A longer pandemic may eventually cause a long-term gasoline supply shock, which could have the effect of reversing declines in public transit usage expected to occur in the short and mid-term as the imbalance could lead to persistently high gas prices that disincentivize driving.
• It is also likely that a supply shock does not materialize, which would keep gasoline prices low through the mid and long term and leave transit usage and TNC usage depressed, especially if the overall number of trips remains lower in aggregate compared to the pre-COVID baseline.
• The overall effects on vehicle miles travelled and parking demand of greater than $4 per gallon gasoline for an extended period of time in the United States is difficult to predict because it has never occurred.
• Though the physical structure and layout of most American cities would continue to make walking and biking non-viable modes of travel for most purposes, even in an environment of persistent high gas prices, such prices could accelerate the adoption rate of electric vehicles. An accelerated adoption rate for EVs would also accelerate the need for construction of new parking spaces or conversion of existing spaces that are equipped with electric charging infrastructure.
• However, persistently low fuel prices, along with the existing limitations of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure, may instead decelerate the adoption rate of electric vehicles relative to the pre-2020 trendline.

Micromobility

• If micromobility providers can survive the acute phases of the pandemic, they are likely to emerge stronger, with increases in utilization as well as improvements in profitability and overall viability.
• Increases in micromobility utilization could come mostly at the expense of mass transit, and not of automobiles, as micromobility is more compatible with social distancing.
• Because an increase in micromobility is likely to take away mostly from transit usage, and not from personal vehicle usage, such an increase would likely not decrease parking demand in most contexts.
• Increased micromobility utilization may necessitate additional space dedicated to parking/storing of scooters and bicycles in urban areas as well as in and around college campuses.

TNC’s & Rideshare

• Cheap and convenient rideshare services may lead to persistent reduced overall demand for public transit if TNCs can survive in the long term.
• It is unclear whether or not a majority of TNC users view TNCS as significantly less risky than public transit in terms of risk of contracting COVID-19.
• If rideshare users do not view TNCs as being significantly less risky, then it is likely that parking demand for fine dining, hotels, airports, and entertainment/events may increase back to pre-TNC levels as many potential TNC users choose to drive instead in the mid-term.
• It should be noted that the long-term financial viability of the major TNC operators remains uncertain, which should provide stakeholders caution when considering parking reductions as a function of expected TNC usage.

Walker’s curb management lead, Chrissy Mancini Nichols, recently interviewed with E-Commerce Times to discuss the impact that the pandemic has had on curbside service.

“The curb is one of the most valuable assets in a city,” Chrissy states in the article. “The demand has shifted in the past few years from solely private vehicle parking to pick up and drop off for ride apps, commercial delivery, and bike and scooter parking.”

Read more about how businesses and consumers are now utilizing this popular strategy to navigate the “new normal” here!

by Mallory Baker

This is the second entry in a three-part series about strategies for successful virtual public engagement. Read the first part.

For Walker, accessibility, ease of use, and clarity of purpose are always top of mind in our public engagement efforts. We leverage the power of digital hubs and online surveys as effective and simple ways to share information, create community, and gather meaningful feedback.

Digital Hubs

The Case for Digital Hubs

Digital hubs are landing pages or websites for projects—best suited for municipal projects lasting six months or more. Digital hubs can serve as a “one stop shop” for your community to learn about the project scope and timeline, participate in ongoing engagement opportunities and learn about upcoming ways to provide input, do additional related research, and get a sense of who is working on the project and listening to their feedback.

The Keys to a Strong Digital Hub

• An easy-to-remember URL, such as citynameparkingstudy.com
• A simple design following industry guidelines for accessibility.
• Use of analytical tools—assessing how many people access the site, how they are accessing it, and how they’re getting there, among other metrics.
• Social media plug-ins, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, for real-time updates
• Various levels of information—from basic infographics on project scope and timeline to in-depth discussion threads to links to related news and information—to cover viewers of various interest levels.
• A “Who’s Listening” section with names and contact information for project managers.

Online Surveys

The Case for Online Surveys

While surveys are often best for quick “temperature gauging” to help shape more in-depth public and stakeholder engagement, they can play a much more important role in a fully digital engagement strategy. Surveys often yield far greater participation than any other form of online or in-person engagement, as they are easy and quick to complete, and shareable with an open link- so your community members can easily become your ready-made survey marketing team.

The Keys to a Strong Survey

• A clearly-defined goal, with up to three key pieces of feedback you’d like to obtain from your participants.
• Pieces of education along the way to help your participants become more informed respondents and improve the quality of your results.
• A maximum completion time of five minutes.
• A trial run with at least five people, preferably of varying ages, backgrounds, and abilities.
• Liberal use of pictures and maps (including alternative text to make it accessible!) to orient participants.

This is the second entry in a three-part series. Look forward to the conclusion soon.

Walker Consultants presents Curbs, Streets and Parking for Reopening, a guide for communities to use these spaces to aid in pandemic response.

As cities and states begin to lift stay-at-home orders related to COVID-19, there will be a phased reopening of business and other institutions. Physical distancing will continue to remain especially important. As restaurants and retail begin to reopen, new measures will need to be taken to ensure customers, visitors, and employees can maintain adequate physical distancing.

This guide highlights ways for cities and communities to re-purpose their curbs, streets and parking to create more space for people. To ensure these efforts adequately consider the needs of business, customers, and residents—and are community appropriate and equitable—careful and considerate planning of public right-of-way will be essential.

Want to talk to a Walker Consultants expert about managing your curb? Contact Chrissy Mancini Nichols, Walker’s curb management lead.

Read the guide now (PDF).

Walker’s Chrissy Mancini Nichols and Sue Thompson discuss how airports can take advantage of this time of reduced traffic to maintain and upgrade their parking facilities on this episode of Airport Improvement magazine’s Show and Tell with Kristen Shaw.

Video not appearing? Watch on YouTube.

by Mallory Baker

This is the first entry in a three-part series about strategies for successful virtual public engagement. The second part is now available.

While states throughout the U.S. are slowly reopening, many citizens are still wary of in-person interaction—especially interaction in larger group settings. It is becoming increasingly apparent that general efforts to reduce the size of public gatherings are likely to continue well into the future.

Especially when it comes to civic engagement, where the comfort and safety of participants is of the utmost importance, we must find an alternative to the in-person meetings and open houses that are typically the centerpieces of public and stakeholder engagement. To aid us in this process at Walker, we’ve developed a series of guiding principles to help us create virtual public engagement plans that adhere to local, state, and federal health and safety guidelines, maximize broad and diverse participation, and create a truly human-driven outcome.

Walker’s Guiding Principles for Virtual Engagement

We Build a Foundation

Alongside our clients, we develop a clear articulation of what we’d like to accomplish with each constituency, and what specific feedback we’d like to get in the form of a brief set of guiding questions.

We Focus on Productive Collaboration

In any form of public engagement—but especially virtual—opportunities for input should be clearly and concisely constructed to ensure productive conversation that results in usable feedback. We rely on clarity of purpose to limit ambiguous questions or unstructured “open mic time” in virtual meetings and charettes.

We Continue to Educate

In-person public engagement offers many formal and informal opportunities to educate. Online, these opportunities must be created. For surveys and other online commenting opportunities, we provide prep packets and resources for participants.

We Choose Quality and Quantity

Online surveys can generate 50 to 100 times the participation that public meetings do, and 10 to 20 times the participation of online “crowdsourcing” activities, like mapping and discussion threads. Online surveys also allow gathering of specific feedback, minimize the time participants need to dedicate to the activity, allow participants to share easily with friends, family, and colleagues, and are easily incorporated into deliverables and reports.

We are Sensitive to Participants’ Time

We create planned activities that take roughly 5 minutes or less for all or most participants. Particularly with surveys, we aim for simple, clear questions and straightforward, concise language at a 6^th to 8^th grade reading level.

We Have Multiple Options

Our public engagement strategies include multiple and redundant opportunities for input, especially when programs are 100% virtual.

We Create Promoters and Champions

We make participants promoters and champions of input opportunities—such as online surveys or online discussion threads and activities—by making them easily shareable on social media platforms and through other methods.

We Make Our Tools Accessible

We create accessible tools that can be used by people of varying abilities, age levels, education, and more. We use clear and concise language, provide alternative text describing images, graphics, and maps, and accompany any videos or audio with transcription or subtitles.

We Keep in Touch

After engaging constituents, we get back in touch with them to share final deliverables and explain how their input was incorporated and why their opinions mattered to the project outcome.

Through these guiding principles, we create public engagement plans that go beyond “checking the boxes”, focusing on a clear path from the public engagement process, all the way to finalization of deliverables, implementation, and beyond.

This is the first of a three-part series. Continue reading part two.

Developing Strategies to Manage Your Parking Assets in Unique Times

by Thomas Szubka, CAPP, CPP

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic is causing a disruption to the Parking, Transportation, and Mobility Industry. It seems the main questions, apparent in virtually all industries, center around how long this disruption will last and how long the recovery will take. How will social distancing affect transit? Will there be more cars on the road, or will remote work finally be a widely accepted practice? Will we change, long term, how we physically interact with one another and our surroundings?

Often, it takes a disruption to advance a technology or business practice. Usually, that disruption is caused by design, however, what we are now experiencing is a disruption by circumstance.

When disruption is circumstantial, there is a sense of helplessness. COVID-19 is not making our business practices better, nor is it introducing a new or improved technology. As this disruption is not actively improving our business, these circumstances are creating obstacles instead. How we react to these obstacles will determine if there is a way to benefit from these unfortunate circumstances and find a silver lining in the COVID-19 cloud.

Start by focusing on what you can control. Take charge of how you move forward by initiating a plan to recover or improve. You may not know where all this is going but it is a great time to get back to the basics and take the opportunity to have a thorough look at your business, as it is beneficial to have a solid foundation from which to base your strategies and plans going forward.

Consider why now may be an opportune time to initiate operational and financial audits; technology reviews and upgrade planning; and operational projects and planning that will benefit your business going forward.

Reduction in demand provides opportunity for access.

Take advantage of the opportunity that reduced demand affords. Sure, we would all rather be busy and maximizing the collection of revenues and providing outstanding services, however, this is the time to plan and prepare for when these circumstances change.

Work on projects for which you have not had time to invest. Structural reviews are far easier to conduct when facilities are not at capacity and are often put on the back burner during good times. Along the same line, repairs and improvements are also easier to execute when the there are fewer customers to inconvenience. The added benefit is providing a refreshed facility to welcome customers back.

Reduction in revenue activities will likely provide added time to conduct operational and financial audits or explore improvements in technology upgrades. Both will encourage you to look at your operations more closely and provide outcomes that will allow you to be more efficient in your business efforts when the circumstances finally do change.

Audit.

Financial and operational audits are a great practice at any time and the best organizations conduct these regularly. As a result of having too much time, or a desperate need to optimize revenue and operations, conducting audits may be as important as ever. Start by focusing on:

• Cleaning up contract parking accounts and understanding the demand.
• Review past transactional data, reports, and banking information to validate results.
• Evaluate revenue collection procedures and contemplate if collecting cash is worth the cost going forward.
• Reexamine traffic flow and lane geometries to determine the viability of certain technologies (LPR, APGS, etc.)
• Assess staffing levels and payroll costs to determine the optimal staffing levels.
• Acknowledge potential customer interaction points and develop alternatives to the potentially changing customer experience.

Performing audits now, while there are departures from normal business operations, will allow you to be more efficient and provide an uneventful environment in which to address the findings.

Technology can help.

Conducting an operational audit and setting upon an improvement plan, will help you to determine the best technology solutions to fit your business needs. Often, efficiencies in operations can be realized with the proper selection and use of technology that will justify the investment.

Frictionless parking, pay by app, virtual permits and enforcement, and advanced hardware are established technologies and improve upon the potential need to reduce physical interaction with hardware.

For example, frictionless parking can have several variations, but the most important tenet is facilitating the entry and exit of a vehicle with little to no stop in movement. An operational audit will determine:

• If your facility has the proper lane geometries conducive to LPR, or if an AVI solution is more appropriate.
• Ability for your operations to go ticketless.
• Capability of using barcode on a phone app to add value to the customer interaction
• Traffic management external to the facility that may affect movement.
• Queuing conditions for entry and exit, and where improvements can be achieved.

There are plenty of options, but the effort will be more productive if you have a specific plan developed from an audit for which to base the technology upgrades upon.

Potential for automation will help address opportunities for efficiency, reduce physical interaction points, and promote customer and employee safety. Employees can shift to a more ambassadorial role that can be performed with proper physical distancing or from remote workstations with the aid of virtual communication solutions.

Data will also be more important than ever. Given the uncertainty in how the parking and transportation industry will recover, operators will need to be diligent at monitoring data to ensure operations can handle changes in volume, time of day peaks, and be able to react to provide alternatives or incentives as behaviors and data evolve  The only way to get the correct data, is to have the proper technology in place.

Barriers have shifted.

The pandemic had created several new issues and those new issues may now be the primary focus in favor of past objections to attempted advancements. Whether political, funding, or consumer fueled objections to changes existed, they can likely have an easier time being overcome if it helps address an issue requiring resolution today.

A good example is how curbside management has changed in many municipalities. Offering curb spaces to facilitate deliveries and pick-ups have been concerns in the past with the value of the curb being so high. With recent circumstances, many downtowns have retracted from on-street payments or have relaxed enforcement. It is now easier (financially and politically) to designate curb space to help support the local businesses. When this is over, will these solutions simply disappear, or will they be integrated into normal business practice?  When revenues for curb space come back into play, how will these solutions be monetized?

How these solutions are expressed will make a difference, so consider several ways from which to approach:

            Customer Safety

Now is a time in which the welfare of the consumer and the employee is vital. Going virtual or reducing physical interaction with hardware is an advantage to promoting public and employee safety. This will certainly aid in the promotion of certain technology upgrades for which you may have previously experienced resistance.

            Labor Efficiency

Many organizations in our industries have had to furlough employees with the intent to hire everyone back once normalcy is achieved. If getting back to normal takes too long, there is a real risk that those valuable employees will have found work elsewhere and may not be available. Now would be the time to analyze and plan how automation and streamlining business practices can promote a more efficient organization.

            Business Efficiency

Is your business prepared, or better prepared for the possibility of experiencing similar circumstances again? Are you able to act on those lessons learned and do you have the right data to analyze pain points and where to aim primary focus going forward?  Do you have the most streamlined business model to take advantage of opportunities when they present, or reduce risk when unfortunate circumstances avail? Operational and technology audits with due diligence on improvements during a time like this will pay dividends in your recovery efforts and moving your revenue and operations forward.

            Operational Changes

An operational and technology audit can help you understand where your business stands and if your current operation and technology can support what will be the new normal. Consider how curbside deliveries and pick-ups have been implemented to support local establishments. Will these go away once normal curb management returns, or can you find a way to keep some of the valuable solutions in place

            Goodwill

By showing that thought has been given to customer and employee safety, and improved working conditions, the organization will benefit and engender loyalty from these efforts. Consumers and employees may be willing to sacrifice habitual behaviors if they can appreciate that changes are being made for the sake of safety and well-being.

Engage the pros.

Professional assistance in audits and evaluations; developing strategies; and creating specifications for solutions can be advantageous in maximizing the efficiency of your efforts and provide guidance during these overwhelming times.

There are many consultants, technology and operations representatives, and peers that are eager to help. As we have found in the past several weeks, there is no shortage of parking professionals willing and able to share their challenges and successes for the collective good. This is the winning advantage that our industry is taking to prevent disruption and create favorable opportunities.

About the Author

Thomas G. Szubka, CAPP, CPP is a Parking and Mobility Professional with executive experience and over 18 years in the Parking & Mobility Industry. His experience includes private operations, municipal operations and most recently as a technology solutions provider in both sales and operations. Tom is a Senior Consultant with Walker Consultants and can be reached at TSzubka@walkerconsultants.com or 813.437.2198.