Decision Analytics for Parking Availability in Downtown Pittsburgh

Abstract

ParkPGH is a novel parking application that provides real-time and predictive information on the availability of garage parking spaces within Pittsburgh’s Cultural District. The core of the application is a module that collects real-time parking information from the garages by tapping into their gate counts. The real-time component is complemented by a module that uses historical data and an events calendar to predict parking availability. In 2011, visitors to downtown Pittsburgh used ParkPGH more than 300,000 times to determine when and where to park. The application has also been beneficial to garage operators because the information it provides on parking demand affords them greater flexibility in addressing contingencies and managing lease holders. The deployment of ParkPGH, which includes a robust evaluation component, is one piece of a broader transportation ecosystem within the Greater Pittsburgh region. The lessons we learned from the initiative, the application’s relatively low cost, its ease of retrofitting, and its open-source platform can enable other cities to lower the costs of implementing and managing similar smart-parking solutions and significantly shorten their learning curves.