Columbus, Ohio: A Real-World Evaluation of Smart Parking Technology
Columbus, OH at a Glance
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Pilot Area: Short North Arts District
Project: Parking Space Availability Technology Pilot
Applications: Real-time parking availability, occupancy analytics and targeted enforcement
Criteria Tested: Accuracy, integration capability, and installation ease
The Challenge
The City of Columbus wanted to understand whether real-time parking technology could improve both the customer experience and the City's understanding of how on-street parking was being used.
For the Short North Arts District, Columbus had two primary objectives: provide customers with real-time information about parking availability and give the City's parking team better data for understanding occupancy and demand.
Rather than selecting a technology based on specifications alone, Columbus decided to test competing technologies under real operating conditions.
A Competitive, Real-World Evaluation
In 2019, Columbus selected three companies from 12 applicants to participate in a parking technology demonstration in the Short North.
Columbus evaluated the technologies across three primary areas: installation, integration and accuracy.
That meant testing more than whether a sensor could detect a parked vehicle. Columbus could evaluate the technologies on active city streets, assess how effectively each vendor supported the deployment and determine whether the resulting information could be useful within the City's parking operations.
“By Far the Most Accurate Results”
Fybr stood out in the evaluation scoring the highest among all vendors for accuracy, integration capability, and installation ease.
In a 2020 interview with Fybr, Robert Ferrin, then Assistant Director of Parking Services for the City of Columbus, described the City's experience:
“Fybr was quick to provide proactive troubleshooting where needed, proactive communications, and in the end, through our evaluation process, provided the City of Columbus with by far the most accurate results.”
Ferrin also highlighted the value of having Fybr involved in interpreting the resulting data:
“To have the experienced Fybr team evaluating the data in addition to our team was definitely beneficial.”
For Columbus, the pilot wasn't simply about collecting occupancy information. It was about determining whether that information could become useful to the people actually managing the City's parking system.
Understanding Parking Demand Over Time
Continuous occupancy data gave Columbus a more detailed view of how parking demand changed throughout the day and over longer periods.
As Ferrin explained:
“What the sensors provide us is the ability to monitor occupancy on a daily basis, allowing us to form more robust averages as opposed to the more traditional methods.”
That continuous view produced some unexpected findings.
During the pilot, Columbus found that average occupancy in the Short North was lower than staff had anticipated. Continuous occupancy data gave the City another way to test assumptions about parking demand against observed curb activity.
For a city making decisions about parking policy and operations, that distinction matters. Instead of relying solely on periodic observations, Columbus could develop a more complete picture of how its parking assets were actually being used.
Turning Curb Data Into Targeted Enforcement
The pilot also showed how continuous occupancy information could uncover specific operational issues.
Columbus examined sensor data from areas serving different curb functions, including bus stops and loading zones. The data revealed vehicles occupying those areas late at night, including activity that didn't correspond with bus schedules.
For Ferrin and his team, the data provided something particularly valuable:
“Now we had validation.”
Once Columbus could see where and when those parking behaviors were occurring, the information could also inform how enforcement resources were deployed.
As Ferrin explained:
“From an enforcement standpoint, using this data we can be more targeted and efficient in our approach.”
That expanded the value of real-time occupancy information beyond helping drivers find parking. The same underlying data could help parking staff identify patterns, validate problems and focus limited resources where they were most useful.
What Columbus Demonstrated
Columbus evaluated multiple parking technologies under real-world conditions, considering installation, integration and accuracy rather than relying solely on product specifications.
Fybr provided continuous occupancy information that helped the City better understand parking demand and identify specific curb-management issues. Following the evaluation, Ferrin described Fybr as providing Columbus with “by far the most accurate results.”
The Columbus pilot demonstrates a straightforward principle for cities evaluating parking technology: test it on real streets and determine whether the resulting data can support real parking decisions.
Sources
Fierce Sensors: Ohio City Implements Sensors to Ease Parking, September 2019
Fybr: Interview with Robert Ferrin, then Assistant Director of Parking Services, City of Columbus, August 2020
Fybr conducted a contemporaneous interview with Ferrin following the pilot. His comments document the City's evaluation process, his assessment of Fybr's performance, the value of continuous occupancy information and the City's use of the data to support more targeted enforcement.