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Advisory Parking Committee narrows parking-report metrics, agrees on two-month lag plus predicted estimates
Summary
At its March 12 meeting the Advisory Parking Committee focused on which parking data to receive regularly, agreeing on two-month delayed actuals supplemented by an estimated 'passes × price' prediction and several standard charts to track revenue, capacity and customer contacts.
Birmingham City — At its March 12 meeting the Advisory Parking Committee agreed on a narrower set of regular parking reports and formats to help the committee monitor revenue, capacity and operations. Committee staff said they will deliver two-month delayed actual financials alongside a predicted estimate derived from the number of outstanding monthly passes multiplied by the pass price.
The move is intended to give committee members timely, comparable data without repeatedly asking the city's finance office for special extracts. Aaron (staff member) said, “I can get the number of transactions, and we can get the amount paid for the meters.” He told the committee he would produce examples in the format the panel favored and bring a draft to the next meeting.
Why it matters: committee members said clearer, consistent reports will let them spot trends — such as rising occupancy or changing garage performance — and advise on tactical responses like pricing, enforcement coordination and longer-term capital planning.
Committee decisions and agreed formats
- Timing and approach: The committee agreed staff should provide two-month delayed actual revenue and expense reports (the city’s financial close creates the lag) and include on the same charts a predicted revenue line calculated by multiplying outstanding monthly passes by the pass price. That hybrid lets members see official posted results while tracking an expected-value estimate.
- Revenue and expense content: Members asked for an income-statement format showing monthly subtotals (monthly passes, transient, garage-level subtotals) and a simple line for the APS fund balance (current month, previous month, same month last year). Staff said the full finance system report (pulled from the city financial system) can be reformatted for committee use.
- Garage revenue and capacity: The committee kept consolidated garage revenue charts (year-over-year comparisons) and agreed to keep capacity/occupancy charts that illustrate hourly and weekday peak usage. Members said those charts are the most useful for identifying short windows of congestion and longer-term trends.
- Meter-zone transactions and heat-map idea: The committee asked staff to provide transactions by ParkMobile/zone (total transactions and total dollars) by month so members can compare which curb zones are busiest. Staff said the meter software can export transaction counts and amounts by zone; the committee asked for a simple month-by-zone table or map visualization if feasible.
- Free-parking and utilization: Members kept a per-structure “percent free vehicles” table (free vehicles ÷ total vehicles) and asked staff to clarify the column header so it reads “percent free vehicles” rather than implying percent revenue lost.
- Call-center reporting: The committee asked to retain call-center metrics by garage (volume and reason categories) because the call center notifies staff when issues fall outside standard parameters. Staff said the call center provides nightly summaries and case-level detail when needed.
- Citations: Committee members agreed citation counts alone are noisy (enforcement staffing varies) and recommended circling back to citation trends only after meter-occupancy data are available to show enforcement gaps; the committee removed a regular citations line from the core monthly packet.
Context and next steps
Staff will assemble the agreed charts and a draft KPI packet and present it at the next APC meeting for fine-tuning. City finance will continue to present comprehensive financials on the biannual schedule the committee previously set, while the APC will receive the streamlined monthly/quarterly operational packet. Aaron said he will attempt to produce the reformatting in-house so the committee sees a sample report at the next meeting.
Ending: Staff will return with a draft packet (two-month delayed actuals plus the predicted-pass estimate and the retained capacity and free-parking tables) for the committee to review and either adopt or request further tweaks at the next meeting.
