julian
14638c2e13
New reference page tariff-industry-survey.md (2026-07 web research): field taxonomy — per-started-increment hourly (per-minute tried and rolled back in practice), degressive ladders, day caps, up-to matrices, day tickets, evening/overnight packages, event rates, early bird (entry-time-conditioned), day/night + weekend/holiday/seasonal windows, category pricing, contracts, merchant validations (amount/percent/ time-credit/re-rate), SFpark-style dynamic pricing. Coverage map: our engine expresses everything a staffed single lot advertises; real gaps = early bird (the pick-table-by-entry-time future design, same mechanism as weekend menus) and validation overlays; anti-features = per-minute billing + dynamic pricing. Indexed + logged. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Xcm6ikLgGoCxxHrxtjkk5V
126 lines
8.1 KiB
Markdown
126 lines
8.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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type: reference
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tags: [parking, domain, business, pricing, research]
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sources: []
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updated: 2026-07-05
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---
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# Tariff systems in the parking industry — survey (2026-07)
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Web research (2026-07-05) into the tariff/pricing structures the parking industry actually uses,
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to sanity-check the [[tariff]] engine's coverage and rank the gaps. Sources at the end; legacy
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cross-check in [[parksql2017-legacy-schema]].
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## The taxonomy — what operators run in the field
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**1. Time-based accrual (the bread and butter everywhere)**
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- **Linear hourly** — €/hr **per started hour**; billing increments of 30/60 min dominate.
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**Per-minute billing is rejected in practice**: garages that tried it (e.g. Leuven) rolled it
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back within months — customers couldn't predict the price and complaints rose. Vindicates our
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`incrementMin` default of 60.
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- **Degressive ladder** — marginal price FALLS with duration (€2.50 first hour, €0.50/30min
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after): the standard shape for hospitals, city-centre garages, anywhere encouraging longer
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stays. Exactly our V1/V2 `blocks`.
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- **Progressive ladder** — marginal price RISES with duration: rarer, used to force turnover
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(short-stay curbside). Same `blocks` primitive, ascending.
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- **Daily / weekly caps** — a ceiling regardless of accrual ("day max €7"). Universal in
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commercial garages. Our `dailyCapMinor`.
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- **Free grace period** — 15–30 min free at entry (airports: pickup/dropoff support). Our
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`gracePeriodEntryMin`.
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**2. Whole-stay prices (not accrual)**
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- **Flat rate / day ticket** — one price for the day (Delft inner city: €29/day). Our stepped
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("up-to") table with one row, or a flat V1.
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- **Up-to matrices** — "stay up to N hours costs TOTAL" tables: the region's habit (legacy
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ParkSQL confirms). Our `steps`.
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- **Evening/overnight package** — "€8 after 18:00 until 06:00", whole window one price. VERY
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common municipally. Exactly our `packageMinor` (built 2026-07-05).
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- **Event rate** — flat premium price during a known event window, set in advance. Expressible
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today as a date-ranged windowed card (flat or package).
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**3. Entry-time-conditioned rates (the notable GAP)**
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- **Early bird** — a discounted all-day flat for cars that ENTER before a cutoff (typically
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09:00–10:00), sometimes with an exit-window condition too; no forgiveness for missing the
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cutoff. A CBD-commuter staple worldwide. The defining trait: the rate is selected by the
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ENTRY instant and governs the whole stay — which is precisely the
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**pick-table-by-entry-time** design we identified as the sound future shape (also solves
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weekend menus). Anti-arbitrage conditions (min stay / exit window) exist to stop short-stay
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parkers grabbing the flat.
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**4. Calendar windows** — day/night rates, weekday vs weekend/holiday, seasonal date ranges
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(Berlin: free nights + Sundays in some zones). Our V2 windowed cards cover all of these.
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**5. Category pricing** — by vehicle type (car/bus/truck) and by customer class
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(resident/visitor — SKIDATA advertises residency + vehicle-type tariffs). Our `card.category` +
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frozen session category.
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**6. Contracts / recurring** — weekly/monthly fixed rates for commuters; steady-revenue anchor
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everywhere. Ours lives outside the tariff: [[subscription]] plans.
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**7. Discount overlays (validations) — the second GAP**
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- **Merchant validation** — a sponsor (shop/hotel/cinema) reduces the parker's fee: mechanisms
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range from stamped/barcoded tickets to one-use codes to LPR-keyed auto-validation. Discount
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shapes in PARCS products: fixed amount, percentage (up to 100% comp), TIME CREDIT ("first 2h
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free"), or a full re-rate to a different rate table. Fully vs partially sponsor-subsidised.
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- **Channel discounts** — cheaper pre-booked/online/app rates (airports especially).
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**8. Dynamic / demand-based** — price moves with occupancy. SFpark (the canonical study):
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target 60–80% block occupancy, ±$0.25 adjustments, → −43% search time, −30% GHG; average rate
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actually FELL. Airports run revenue-management engines inside operator-set floor/ceiling.
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Almost exclusively municipal-curbside + large-airport territory, needs demand telemetry +
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price-communication infrastructure — not single-lot booth territory.
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**9. Fees/penalties** — lost ticket = worst-case exposure (max daily × assumed duration): ours
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(`lostTicketMinor`). Post-payment exit grace, then overstay repricing: ours.
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## Coverage map — our engine vs the industry
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| Industry structure | Status in our engine |
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| --- | --- |
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| Linear hourly, per-started-increment | ✅ V1/V2 blocks + incrementMin |
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| Degressive / progressive ladder | ✅ blocks |
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| Daily cap, entry grace, exit grace | ✅ |
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| Up-to matrix / day ticket | ✅ steps (defaultCard) |
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| Day/night, weekend/holiday, seasonal | ✅ V2 windowed cards |
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| Night/evening whole-window package | ✅ packageMinor (2026-07-05) |
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| Event rate | ✅ expressible (date-ranged card) |
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| Vehicle/customer category | ✅ card.category (capture seam pending) |
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| Monthly/weekly contracts | ✅ subscription plans (separate) |
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| Lost ticket, overstay reprice | ✅ |
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| **Early bird / entry-time-conditioned** | ❌ gap — needs pick-table-by-entry-time (see [[tariff]] up-to/tiers incompatibility discussion) |
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| **Validations / merchant discounts** | ❌ gap — no discount overlay mechanism; would need signed discount events + sponsor accounting |
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| Pre-book/online channel rates | ❌ out of scope (no online channel; offline-first) |
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| Dynamic/demand pricing | ❌ deliberately out — municipal/airport scale, needs telemetry; conflicts with printed-price predictability at a booth lot |
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## Takeaways for the roadmap
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1. **Coverage is already strong**: everything a single staffed lot typically advertises is
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expressible today. The 2026-07-05 package mode closed the last everyday gap (real night
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price).
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2. **Early bird is the highest-value missing structure** and shares its mechanism with the
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weekend-menu ask: select the ENTIRE rate table by entry instant (window → table), instead of
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pricing per wall-clock slice. One future mechanism, two market features. Include min-stay /
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exit-window conditions if built (anti-arbitrage is part of the product, not a nicety).
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3. **Validations are the second candidate** once merchants near the site matter: time-credit +
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percent + full-comp shapes, as signed appended events (fits the ledger model); sponsor
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settlement stays outside the app (like drawer-review denials).
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4. **Do not build**: per-minute billing (industry tried it, customers rejected it), dynamic
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pricing (wrong scale + breaks price predictability at a booth).
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## Sources
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- FHWA, *Contemporary Approaches to Parking Pricing: A Primer* — <https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop12026/sec_2.htm>
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- Arivo, *The Right Parking Tariff* (practitioner taxonomy) — <https://arivo.co/en/blog/optimal-parking-pricing>
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- Pitane, *Per-minute parking creates chaos* (Leuven rollback) — <https://pitane.blue/en/2025/01/16/Parking-rates-in-garages-per-minute-parking-causes-chaos-according-to-experts/>
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- Secure Parking, *Early Bird Parking* (entry/exit conditions) — <https://www.secureparking.com.au/en-au/parking-solutions/early-bird-parking/>
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- ParkWhiz help, *What is Early Bird* — <https://help.parkwhiz.com/support/solutions/articles/60001010507-what-is-early-bird->
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- Parking BOXX, *Validation programs guide* — <https://blog.parkingboxx.com/industry/parking-validation-programs-guide/>
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- Amano McGann, *Validation solutions* (discount shapes incl. re-rate) — <https://amanomcgann.com/our-solutions-parking-management/validation/>
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- ITS DOT evaluation of SFpark — <https://www.itskrs.its.dot.gov/2024-b01818>
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- UCLA ITS, *Pricing Parking by Demand (SFpark)* — <https://www.its.ucla.edu/publication/pricing-parking-by-demand-sfpark/>
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- IDeaS, *Airport parking dynamic pricing* — <https://ideas.com/airport-parking-dynamic-pricing/>
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- SKIDATA, mobility & parking solutions (tariff axes) — <https://www.skidata.com/en-us/solutions/mobility-parking>
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- City of Tampa / MPLS Parking / RDU T&Cs (published rate-card examples) —
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<https://www.tampa.gov/parking/info/parking-hourly-and-daily-rates>,
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<https://www.mplsparking.com/parking-rates>, <https://www.rdu.com/terms-conditions/>
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