When it comes to parking, there are plenty of things that go unnoticed. For instance, have you ever thought about the amount of time you spend on average looking for a place to park? Or trying to understand the parking signage around cities?
Parking should be made simple and straightforward. Yet, most of the time, that’s not the case.
Check out the following surprising facts about parking that probably didn’t cross your radar until now.
According to research conducted by Go City Wide, 95% of a car’s lifetime is spent being parked. Think about that for a second. Buying a car is a big investment. Purchasing it for it to be used only 5% of its time might not make the investment worth it. It’s easy to see where the demand has come from for shared car schemes and alternative personal transport options.
What would you do if you had an extra 17 hours of free time every year? Probably something other than looking for parking! The fact that the average person spends almost an entire day of the year simply looking for a place to park proves that cities and organizations need smarter, more reliable parking technology.
A study performed by Planetizen found that a huge amount of land is devoted to parking infrastructures. In residential areas, an average of 35% of the land is used for parking lots. The number is much higher in urban cities and non-residential areas, as between 50 and 70% of the land is directed towards parking.
States’ parking minimum regulations enforce that for every square meeting of a building, there must be a minimum amount of parking spots available. If regulations aren’t met, businesses ought to pay a price for each parking spot not provided. Yet, businesses typically exceed the minimum amount to mitigate future possible regulations for increasing the number of minimum parking spots. Imagine how much land can be cleared for more useful purposes other than parking if innovative parking solutions optimized parking spaces.
Realty Times found that plenty of people tend to throw trash out the windows of their cars before leaving their parking space believing that the trash will blow away. Yet, the reality is quite different. Realty Times found that even the smallest trash thrown away generates enough pollution that can lead to cracks in the parking lot’s foundation as time goes by. Why? As these small amounts of trash accumulate, so does the damage inflicted in the pavements.
As friendly and welcoming as they might seem, parking lots can indeed be a source of pain. A study shared by the world’s most prestigious and luxurious automaker, Mercedes-Benz Daimler, found that 40% of all car accidents that result in physical damage take place during maneuvering and parking. The research by Allianz Technology Centre (2017), found that 8 out of every 10 of these accidents take place when people are leaving their parking space or maneuvering. Such stats suggest that parking should also be optimized for safety reasons.
The US Census Bureau states the United States’ population is currently comprised of 328 million people. According to Bloomberg, the United States has over 2 billion parking spots for about 250 million cars. There is an excessive amount of parking spots - way more than necessary to cover its demand! This most likely suggests that the huge amount of land devoted to parking spaces can be reduced and utilized for more useful, creative, and convenient purposes.
All the previous facts signal to us that parking should be revolutionized and that there are plenty of opportunities to tackle when it comes to improving people’s parking experience.
Modii is here to make that happen. Contact us to learn more about our innovative parking solutions.
