National Parking Association Announces 2018 Innovation Award Winners

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Parking Association (NPA) announced the winners of its 2018 Innovation Awards at the organization's 67th Annual Convention & Expo in Las Vegas, NV.

"The NPA Innovation Awards recognize companies and individuals who demonstrate the highest professionalism and parking best practices while using leadership and state-of-the-art technology to improve safety, sustainability and bottom line results," said NPA president Christine Banning, IOM, CAE.

The 2018 NPA Innovation Award winners are:

NPA Innovator of the Year: Kevin Dougherty, CPP, Barnacle Parking Enforcement  

Kevin Dougherty developed the Barnacle device as an innovative alternative to the traditional car boot that would benefit motorists and parking enforcement officers.  "We didn't want to make a better boot or wheel clamp," Dougherty says. "We wanted to make a tough situation better for everyone involved."

His patented device, the Barnacle, attaches to the vehicle windshield using commercial-grade suction cups that provide 1,000 pounds of force. The Barnacle device uses IoT connectivity to control devices in the field. Each customer has access to a web-based dashboard that allows them to manage their enforcement operation. They can control access, process payments, GPS track and manage devices, and receive real-time alerts.

The Barnacle has been deployed over 10,000 times in 35 states. Based on the average time to remove the Barnacle versus towing or booting, it has saved people over 25,000 hours of time — which is almost three years — not waiting to get a car back.

Dougherty earned his Certified Parking Professional (CPP) designation in 2017. Dougherty is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. 

Innovative Organization of the Year: parkDC: Penn Quarter/Chinatown

By testing state-of-the-art strategies to make it easier to find curbside parking, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) conducted a pilot of curbside demand-based pricing in the Chinatown and Penn Quarter neighborhoods of Washington, DC.

"We knew that performance pricing works in urban areas," says Soumya Dey, PE, PMP, associate director, transportation operations and safety for the District Department of Transportation. "We wanted to know whether we could do it at a much lower price point with the same outcomes and with much fewer assets on the street."

DDOT's new program provides real-time parking availability information to customers via a variety of apps and adjusts on-street hourly meter rates at nearly 1,000 parking spaces to shift demand and drive availability. DDOT helped reduce congestion and achieved equilibrium at 72% of the blocks – a 31% 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.

Innovative Facility of the Year: Museum Garage

Located in the Miami Design District — a neighborhood dedicated to innovative art, design, and architecture — the Museum Garage has become a tourist destination.

"Parking facilities are not really for cars, they are for people," says Manuel Clavel Rojo, principal architect for Clavel Arquitectos. "Parking structures are often designed without thought to the people who see them and live around them."

Clavel is one of the five design firms that worked on the Museum Garage. Each firm — Clavel Arquitectos, K/R, J. Mayer H., WORKac, and Nicolas Buffe — designed a different part of the structure in their own style.

The garage's design is inspired by the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. The first player draws part of a picture and folds the paper so only the border lines show. The next person draws from those lines and repeats the folding. The result is one image whose components don't match but flow as one playful composition.

The facade has 15 "windows" framed in mirrored stainless steel, through which concrete planters pop out above the sidewalk.

"When you say you design parking, people don't usually think it's sexy," Rojo says. "Here, we did the opposite of everyone's expectations. It is the largest piece of art in the world, and it is a fully functional parking facility."

Innovative Sustainability Project of the Year: CSU Sacramento, Parking Structure 5

Sacramento State University's 1,750-stall, six-level Parking Structure 5 serves the parking needs of students, faculty, and staff while complementing the dense forest in the adjacent arboretum. 

"Sustainability is a personal crusade of mine," says Tony Lucas, MA Ed, senior director university transportation, parking, and support services at Sacramento State. "We're a parking organization, but we do what we do holistically. It's in our DNA," he says.

The parking design-build team addressed sustainability from the design and pre-construction phases to construction methodology and operations.   A winner of the Parksmart Gold certification by the Green Building Certification Institute for the U.S. Green Building Council, Parking Structure 5 is the highest-performing, most-sustainable parking structure west of the Mississippi.

The parking structure includes 51 EV charging stations with infrastructure for 43 additional future spots. The structure will have a future photovoltaic canopy at the roof to offset energy usage. Parking Structure 5 features an integrated seismic resistance system known as the precast hybrid moment frame, designed to help it recover immediately after a large earthquake.

About NPA: The National Parking Association is the nation's leading parking trade group. Our mission is to serve as the market leader in parking industry research, education, and programs that advance the industry and its professionals. We support advancing the interests of the private and public sector in parking technology, sustainable mobility, certification, advocacy, research, and education. Founded in 1951, NPA has more than 2,500 members and represents all facets of the $29 billion parking industry. Learn more at weareparking.org.

Jason Glei
202-849-6260
[email protected]

SOURCE National Parking Association

Related Links

http://weareparking.org/