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For an up and coming or already bustling city, parking is almost universally a nightmare. With a constant inflow of people seeking a future there, tourists, and business expansions, it becomes even more of a necessity to have a great parking scheme in place. So the question arises here why cities should care about their parking issues?

Not having enough parking spaces in strategic locations, is more than a nuisance, it’s a huge pitfall to revenue collection, public perception and can even make a city a generally unsafe place. For such a seemingly innocuous problem, it can be a very delicate balance to maintain. Here’s why cities should care about their parking issues!

Safety

Illegal parking is a leading cause of road-related accidents across the world. And when a city does not offer enough parking spaces in a well organized and easily accessible manner, the people start taking shortcuts that can create a very unsafe environment. The key to safe parking is prioritizing. When a thriving business region receives the same amount of parking land as remote outskirts, it becomes a problem. Equal parking across the board is not the answer to this issue.

Revenue Collection

Parking is an indispensable source of revenue collection for a city. When managed well by good city planning and comprehensive legislation, it is an incredible asset. But when mismanaged, it can also form a huge detriment. When parking isn’t easily available or accessible, the public tends to be disinclined to pay for it. An intelligent parking system could greatly mitigate that issue.

A system that alerts a driver to free parking spaces without the hassle of hunting them down, can greatly add to the value of the spot, which means increased monetization. It can also increase the revenue generated by businesses in busy areas. When you can’t find parking around a hot new restaurant, most people will be forced to drive away. Making parking more accessible increases customer satisfaction, which always increases revenue.

Tourism

For any large city, whether it has a vibrant history or a brilliant new age culture, tourism is incredibly important. And there are few things that can deal a blow to that the way over congestion does. Not having enough parking makes for an unfriendly and in general more unsafe city. An integrated policy that both suggests tourist spots while also finding parking around them, could completely change the tourism game for a city. Apart from being an indispensable source of revenue for a city, tourism is also very important for how the city is presented on a global platform.

Public perception

It goes without saying that a city with better road safety immediately goes up in the way the public perceives it. Few things are integral to a city’s success than public perception. Migration is the lifeblood of any bustling city, and solving parking issues and traffic conditions gives more room for population expansion. It also invites companies to invest in the city and add to expansion efforts. On a global scale, a safe and well-managed city increases significantly in its importance to the nation and the world at large.

When parking spaces are mismanaged, a whole host of problems crop up. The land is an incredibly valuable resource that is fast disappearing in cities. A lot of prime lands are being allocated to parking, while in some other areas, parking just doesn’t meet the demands the population has. The issue isn’t that cities lack parking space, it’s that it’s inefficiently located. If parking space was allocated based on proximity to major business centers, or residential areas, instead of a uniform citywide distribution, that would change. An intelligent integrated parking system is the future of smart cities.

A network that can alert drivers to proximal parking spots, or that will allow you to check for parking before even leaving the house, has the ability to greatly increase revenue for businesses and decrease congestion on the roadways. Illegal parking is one of the leading causes of road-related accidents across the globe, and a smart parking system with IoT technology would almost completely eliminate that issue.