The parking numbers planners actually trust.
The parking study data that planners quote usually starts with one number nobody else has. An original measurement, stated as a single quotable line with its sample size, is what makes a utilization study defensible in a boardroom.
Most parking utilization reporting is a mix of two things. There are the borrowed figures, the national averages and industry benchmarks that any consultant can pull from a report. And there is the number only you can produce, the one measured from your own site on your own days.
That second number is the one that carries the study. It is the figure a planner can defend, an engineer can build on, and a board can act on, because it did not come from somewhere else. It came from the actual lot, the actual camera, the actual hours.
A line like that works because it names the source (our footage review), the sample (180 spaces), the method (camera frames), and the window (three days). It can be quoted on its own, checked, and defended. That is the whole point. A number that only makes sense after three paragraphs never gets used.
Why borrowed numbers are not enough
National utilization averages are directional at best. They describe other sites, other cities, other demand patterns. A planner who cites a generic average is telling the board what the industry looks like, not what this site looks like. The decision depends on the local number.
That is why the most useful first question for a parking study is not "what does the national data say" but "what can we measure here, from footage we already have."
How to measure the number only you have
- Define the countable supply: the exact spaces or zones visible in the camera view.
- Pick the window: the days and hours that matter for the decision.
- Count from the footage, marking occupied versus open per zone over time.
- Hand-check a stratified sample of frames to confirm the reported counts.
- State the result as one line: the number, the sample, the window, the source.
What a defensible study hands back
- an original occupancy or utilization number with its sample size named,
- the study window and footage source,
- interval counts or utilization tables by zone,
- annotated evidence frames,
- hand-check or reconciliation notes,
- a reliability grade for the camera view,
- a plain-language statement of what the footage can and cannot support.
Northline Data Systems measures parking utilization from existing camera footage and states the result as one number a planner can stand behind.
Start with a camera view check