Car ownership is increasing, thereby putting pressure on existing car parking spaces | Smart Parking

Car ownership is still increasing in New Zealand.  Car parking infrastructure is not increasing at the same pace.  Between 2000 and 2019, the number of motor vehicles in New Zealand increased by 64%, from 2.7 million in 2000 to 4.4 million motor vehicles in 2019 (Environmental Health Intelligence NZ – EHINZ).

Therefore, every car park space is important and needs to be used fairly and with good intent.  Building multi-storey car parks to help ease parking woes is expensive and often slow to get through planning.  If you own a car park, you will want to ensure that every space is turned over regularly.  By doing so, the shops, restaurants or medical centres nearby have somewhere for people to park.  This could mean that every 3 hours you expect your customers to vacate the car park to allow new ones to attend.  

With more pressure than ever on the existing car park spaces in New Zealand, it is important to consider your car park’s needs and set rules that ensure the individual spaces are used in the best possible way.  If a car park is in continual use, the times a space is used per day can be increased with better management.  For example, if the bay usage turnover used to be 2 per day, to increase this to 4 per day, you may need to adapt the rules to make it a shorter stay, i.e. 2 hours free to 1 hour free, or introduce paid parking, or both.  Smart Parking uses technological know-how to help manage these issues and keep your car park running efficiently.