Parking Analysis

Parking Analysis is the systematic study of parking supply, demand, occupancy, duration, and turnover to understand how parking resources are used and identify opportunities for optimization. By inventorying available spaces and measuring actual utilization patterns, analysts can determine whether an area has too much, too little, or poorly managed parking, informing policy decisions that affect traffic, land use, and urban design. Methods include occupancy surveys that count parked vehicles at regular intervals, license plate studies that measure turnover and duration, and increasingly, real-time sensor data from smart parking systems. GISGISGeographic Information Systems (GIS) enable users to analyze and visualize spatial data to uncover patterns, relation... maps parking inventories by type (on-street, surface lot, structured) and overlays demand generators like retail, office, and residential uses to reveal spatial mismatches between supply and demand. Applications include parking requirement calibration for zoningZoningZoning is a land use planning tool that divides geographic areas into zones with specific permitted uses, building st... codes, shared parking strategies for mixed-use developments, and demand-responsive pricing programs like SFPark that adjust meter rates based on occupancy. Transit-oriented developmentTransit-Oriented DevelopmentTransit-Oriented Development (TOD) is an urban planning strategy that concentrates housing, jobs, and amenities aroun... projects use parking analysis to justify reduced parking ratios near transit stations. Revenue optimization for municipal parking systems balances occupancy targets with pricing strategies. Studies consistently show that excessive parking requirements increase development costs, reduce housing affordability, and promote automobile dependency.