Manual and digital parking management in comparison

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The management of parking areas with the help of staff is particularly common in local recreation areas and at leisure facilities. Many of these facilities are only well frequented under certain conditions: Swimming lakes in summer when the weather is nice and theaters during performance times. 

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The deployment of staff should be worthwhile, so in many cases it is only worth manning the parking spaces with employees if sufficient parking is expected. If the entrance is not occupied, visitors park free of charge.

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There are also widespread parking machines where visitors have to take a ticket and display it clearly in their vehicle. Staff then sporadically check whether all parkers have paid their parking fee. Visitors are aware that there is no complete control and some choose not to buy a parking ticket and park free of charge.

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In both cases, parking lot operators lose out on revenue - either because ticket sales at the entrance are not always staffed or because parkers do not buy a parking ticket in parking areas that are only partially controlled.

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An alternative in such parking areas could be a digital parking management solution that records all parking transactions around the clock. Particularly in view of the shortage of skilled workers, which is also a concern for the tourism industry, it may be worthwhile replacing personnel-intensive management with a digital system.

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What does manual parking space management mean?

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Off-street parking management with the help of personnel refers to the management and control of parking garages, parking lots and private parking spaces by on-site personnel. This method has advantages and disadvantages.

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Advantages of parking space management with the help of personnel

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One of the plus points is that employees on site can answer questions from parkers directly and assist them if anything is unclear, which contributes to increased customer satisfaction. 

The presence of staff can also increase security and the subjective feeling of security among parkers. The technical outlay is also relatively low, especially compared to expensive automated barrier systems. Parking areas where staff collect the parking fee at the entrance do not require a power supply. This type of parking space management is therefore also suitable for very remote parking spaces.

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Challenges in parking space management by personnel

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However, parking space management with the help of employees also entails some difficulties. The deployment of staff is cost-intensive, especially if the parking areas are operated around the clock or during periods in which surcharges are incurred, such as at night and on Sundays and public holidays. Wages, social benefits and other personnel expenses then account for a significant proportion of operating costs. Added to this is the shortage of skilled workers, which means that there may not be enough staff available to cover all shifts.

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Efficiency is also lower than with automated systems, as staff handle fewer vehicles in the same amount of time than digital solutions with license plate scanners. At popular excursion destinations or performance venues, such as theaters and opera houses, traffic jams can occur at peak times, which inhibit the flow of traffic in the surrounding area if all parkers pay for their parking with cash at the entrance.

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Parking space operators also receive less data on parking space usage when parking spaces are staffed and parking tickets are sold at the entrance. This means that fewer analyses and findings are available on the basis of which parking providers could optimize the system. 

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In addition, the quality of parking management depends heavily on the motivation and reliability of staff. Wrong decisions or human error are possible, which can have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and the amount of revenue. This type of parking management also has a number of drawbacks for the staff themselves: they have to work unprotected outdoors in all weathers, in ice and snow in winter at mountain railroads, in storms and thunderstorms at theaters and in the heat at lidos. In addition, the employees are at the mercy of the whims of the parkers while they carry out a monotonous and sometimes boring job instead of devoting themselves to interesting tasks.

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For parkers, the staffed management of parking spaces means that they have to decide on a parking duration directly on arrival. In some cases, only day tickets are available. Even if visitors only want to stay for a short time, they have to pay the daily rate.

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What alternatives are there to labor-intensive parking space management?

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Barrier-based and barrier-free digital systems are alternatives to parking space management with the help of personnel. Both require a reliable power supply. Solutions with barriers are expensive to purchase and operate due to the wear-prone and high-maintenance mechanical components required. In addition, an on-call service may be required to open the barriers manually in the event of a fault.

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Digital, barrier-free systems such as the Peter Park system, on the other hand, save resources and costs: the smart Internet-of-Things solution requires hardly any hardware in the parking areas and incurs only low acquisition and maintenance costs. In particular, the absence of barriers reduces the use of wear-prone components; instead, the Peter Park system works with license plate recognition, which detects incoming and outgoing vehicles. The system uses this to calculate the exact parking time. The license plate is read in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Before leaving the parking area, parkers pay the parking fee incurred by entering their license plate number in partner apps or at installed machines and alternatively online up to 24 hours after departure. Paper tickets are no longer necessary, which saves costs and avoids waste. As there are no barriers at the entrance and exit and no one collects the parking fee there, there is no need to slow down, stop and start up again, and there is no traffic jam. This helps to reduce CO2 emissions on site. 

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The provider's system addresses the current challenges faced by private and public parking operators. Peter Park relieves its partners, for example, with a comprehensive service from a single source, including the tracking of parking offenders: in the event of a parking offense, the owner data can be determined via a query to the Federal Motor Transport Authority.

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Thanks to the digital system, parking space operators receive real-time data on the use of their spaces without having to install additional sensors. They can view and analyze the information via a user-friendly dashboard. Data on current utilization can also be transmitted to websites and parking guidance systems and shown on displays in or near the parking area.

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Relaxed parking at Lake Constance

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The municipality of Bodman-Ludwigshafen installed the Peter Park system in four parking areas in May 2022. Previously, parkers had to buy a parking ticket for their planned stay on arrival. If they spontaneously wanted to stay longer, they had to go back to the machine and buy a new parking ticket. The municipality had to deploy staff to check the parking tickets in the vehicles. Parking offenders had a lot of leeway and some took advantage of this in the hope of not being checked.

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Since the introduction of the Peter Park system, cameras scan all vehicle license plates when entering the parking spaces. The license plates are also read again when leaving the spaces, resulting in the parking duration. Parkers only pay for their parking time at the end and do not have to decide how long they want to stay when they arrive. Non-payers are now recorded throughout. The additional income and saved expenses allow the financing of measures in the municipality to improve the offer and visitor friendliness of the town.

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Minimum personnel costs - maximum result

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Parking management in off-street parking areas with the help of staff is expensive and inefficient for the operator and sometimes boring and inconvenient for the employees. Parkers sometimes pay too much and sometimes not at all. The digital, barrier-free parking management system from Peter Park , on the other hand, saves costs, provides valuable data and is easy and convenient to use - for both operators and parkers. 

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Do you still have questions about the Peter Park system? Arrange a meeting now and get answers.