National Parking Association (NPA) has named ParkDC program of DC Department of Transportation as the Innovative Organisation of the Year for making parking easier in Washington, D.C.
Recognising innovation and excellence, the award was announced at the Annual Convention and Expo of the National Parking Association in Las Vegas last month. ParkDC was recognized for its work with Conduent Transportation, which is a business unit of digital interactions company Conduent Incorporated (NYSE: CNDT).
“This is a well-deserved honor for ParkDC, which is helping to better manage parking in the city, benefiting citizens and visitors. The program is a great example of how sustainable technology, using advanced analytics, can help alleviate congestion and make parking smoother for motorists,” said Soumya Dey, associate director Traffic Operations and Safety, District Department of Transportation (DDOT).
ParkDC program helped reduce double parking, and commercial loading zones were better managed. There was also a five percent improvement in the availability of parking and 12 percent increase in occupancy of underused areas.
“DDOT understands that parking policies have broad implications for transportation within the city. ParkDC is a tremendous initiative where we use our proprietary parking technology to analyze available data to implement variable pricing based on time and location,” said Mick Slattery, CEO Conduent Transportation.
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Information about real-time parking availability is provided to motorists by ParkDC program from several mobile applications. On-street meter rates per hour are also adjusted under the program at about 1,000 parking spaces depending on demand.
“DDOT helped reduce congestion and achieved equilibrium at 72 percent of the blocks – a 31 percent increase. Despite maintaining rates at a majority of the blocks per segment (63 percent), revenues increased significantly. Pay-by-cell dollars increased 22 percent, and payments at the meter increased 12 percent,” noted NPA while announcing ParkDC program as the Innovative Organization of the Year.
D.C. has witnessed a spike in traffic-related accidents and fatalities since 2017. Since January this year, 31 people have died in
District Department of Public Works (DPW) parking enforcement officers have issued thousands of citations for traffic offenses in the district that include double-parking, obstruction of crosswalks, parking close to an intersection, or in a loading zone, and parking in no parking zones and in bike lanes.