Contemporary Approaches to Parking Pricing: A Primer

United States drivers were introduced to the concept of paid, on-street parking in 1935 when the first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City. In the ensuing decades little was done to improve the basic tools or processes of parking pricing. Many cities arbitrarily set fixed parking rates that resulted in excess demand for a finite resource. The failure of cities to price parking based on demand has resulted in an underperforming parking system, the impacts of which include lost revenue, increased congestion, decreased access to businesses, environmental harm, and inconveniences to travelers.