Parking facilities and systems are often an overlooked or inadequately considered element of planning regional transportation systems and land use planning and policymaking. Access to a sufficient capacity of well-designed and well-managed on-street parking spaces (paid and/or un-paid street parking) and off-street parking facilities (parking garages and lots) and systems can have a profound impact on local commercial activity; access to housing, employment, education, recreation, entertainment and alternative transportation modes; traffic congestion; air quality; and negative economic and environmental cost externalities. Parking facilities often represent the end-node destination or the beginning-node origin of most automobile/lorry/truck, motorcycle, bicycle or scooter journies into, within or outbound from an urban area. To the extent that people don't have access to sufficient available parking (or if finding available parking is perceived to be too difficult, dangerous, overly costly and/or time-consuming) near commercial, employment, residential, educational, recreational and/or entertainment centers, then people will have a propensity to conduct such activities elsewhere in their region where parking may be perceived to be more accessible, safer, cheaper and/or convenient. This is particularly the case in the many urban regions of the developed world that have been designed to be "automobile centric", where there may insufficient or unsatisfactory transportation modal alternatives to the automobile (such as a lack of adequate pedestrian, bicycle, bus and or rail modal infrastructure and facilities) available and accessible, that could be otherwise substituted for personal automobile travel.

Traditionally, many urban and transportation planners and policymakers (pertaining to zoning and land-use regulations) focused on requiring sufficient quantities of parking spaces in order to meet potential "peak" automobile parking demand within a local area, based on the permitted land uses and building densities. Given that most land uses seldom generate consistent parking demand during any 24-hour period, these plans and policies generally result in significant inefficiencies and economic cost externalities borne by local landowners, businesses and residents. Furthermore, such parking and land-use policies have also contributed to the interrelated and mutually-reinforcing urban problems of sub-optimal urban land uses (usually lower-than-optimal allowed densities, less diversified use-mixtures and in many cases, the prevention of "highest-and-best" uses), increased roadway traffic congestion and air pollution, greater dispersion and segregation of both population and commercial activities, increased automobile reliance and dependency, and less access to multi-modal transportation options.

More recently, in many metropolitan regions urban planners and land-use policymakers have recognized the importance of "right-sizing" their local parking supply requirements, and more effectively managing scarce parking resources by implementing policies that serve to regulate parking demand and duration throughout the day, through pricing. Application of innovating pricing and permit fee/taxation strategies, combined with existing and emerging mobile navigation technologies which assist travelers in identifying available parking spaces, and provision of adequate modal alternatives and/or supplements to automobile travel all serve to modify human consumer behavior with respect to wasteful parking and automobile use based on self-interested behaviors.

There is tremendous need and simultaneously a tremendous potential for the public and private sectors to collaborate through public-private partnerships to devise innovative solutions with respect to urban and regional parking/transportation and land use/real estate development issues and problems. The mistake of the past was to consider parking as a planning and policy topic in isolation from broader transportation and land-use planning and policy. Parking must be conceived of as a integrated component within a broader regional transportation and land use strategy and plan.

Apart from urban parking, there are also many other more specialized specialty areas related to parking, which include airport parking facilities, "park-n-ride" facilities (adjacent to public transport facilities); and, regional destination parking (around venues such stadiums/arenas, shopping centers, institutions and cultural centers). The parking demand characteristics of each of these type of parking facilities is unique and is largely dependent upon the activities of the associated premises.

DCS advisors possess all the requisite skills and experiences to assist both public and private sector clients with respect to the topic of parking assets. We can advise governments and governmental agencies on the formulation of strategic regional parking plans and policies that are integrated with regional long-term transportation and land use plans and policies. On a transactional basis, we can advise either public sector entities or private sector bidders with respect to long-term contracts to develop or lease/acquire and operate and maintain on-street and/or off-street parking facilities and systems. We can assist either public or private clients on the application of innovative technologies related to parking time-of-day/ demand based pricing strategies and also the integration of mobile navigations systems which inform travelers of available parking spaces. Our sectoral expertise in the areas of roads, rail and commercial real estate complements our advisory capabilities in parking as well.

Supplementing our own extensive skill sets, DCS experts also maintain relationships with related parking sector project external consultants and participants including: both international and local legal advisors; technical, engineering and environmental/social advisors, economic/market consultants; contractors, vendors and technology providers; strategic and financial equity sponsors; lenders (including commercial lenders, international/development financial institutions (IFIs/DFIs), Export Credit Agencies and Export-Import Banks (ECA/Ex-IMs), institutional investors, bond funds and investment banks) and credit rating agencies (if applicable). We are always prepared and highly experienced in taking on a lead transaction advisory or project/program management role where we coordinate and manage (in many cases, procure and retain via subcontract) various technical, legal, commercial, tax and other consultants required for the project. On behalf of our clients we are also prepared and accustomed to leading and concluding negotiations with diverse stakeholders including property owners, real estate developers, governmental/public sector entities or equity sponsors/concessionaires, developers, investors, contractors and venders, lenders, rating agencies, as may be relevant for a given project.

In the parking sector, we don't view parking assets as simply a collection of spaces to park vehicles. Urban parking systems, including on-street and off-street parking access are valuable economic assets, with many dimensions, including transportation, economic development, real estate development, land-use, energy, technology and telecommunications elements. Accordingly, we take a multi-dimensional approach to advising our parking sector clients. In most client cases, there may also be a significant nexus between parking infrastructure facilities and other relevant sectors that we specialize in, such as technology (intelligent transportation systems, barrier-fee (open road) tolling systems, congestion pricing systems, commercial vehicle tolling systems, payments systems, e-charging networks), transportation (interconnected multimodal networks: parking facilities, roads, rail, buses, airports; pedestrian & bikeways); telecommunications (communications towers), real estate (commercial, retail, residential and mixed-use); energy & utilities (solar and wind renewable energy installations); oil & gas (petrol and service stations); E&C (contractors) and heavy industries (heavy equipment, automotive industries and commodities suppliers); and others, as relevant. We are prepared to bring our complementary expertise in these other sectors to our parking sector clients, as their specific project or transaction may benefit. There may be many collaborative partnership opportunities between diverse companies and public and private service providers, who may also have synergistic objectives and opportunities related to parking infrastructure assets and systems. We can help our clients expand the horizons of their project and analyze and understand synergistic economic and commercial impacts related to parking infrastructure assets and services. This will also help forge potential new innovative partnerships with both private and public sector parties, where significant added-value can be realized.