ACRP Research Report 225: Rethinking Airport Parking Facilities to Protect and Enhance Non-Aeronautical Revenue is a guidance document that identifies near-term and long-term solutions to help airports of all types and sizes repurpose, renovate, or redevelop their parking facilities to address the loss of revenue from airport parking and other ground transportation services. The guidance describes how airports might adapt existing parking and ground transportation facilities to make them suitable for alternative, revenue-generating purposes and identify new potential sources of non-aeronautical revenue to compensate for shifting modal preferences, namely Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), autonomous vehicles, and other emerging/future technologies. The guidance document addresses operational, facility, and financial impacts related to the shifting consumer preferences and potential solutions.
Non-aeronautical revenue is a critical source of income for airports, and parking is one of the largest of these sources. Yet ongoing and emerging shifts in customer ground access behavior, resulting from the growing use of TNCs and eventual adoption of emerging technologies, are posing a significant challenge to airports’ reliance on parking revenue. Some airports have seen reductions in parking revenue, and many are imposing or modifying access fees to recover a portion of the lost revenue. Although ACRP has undertaken another project on the impacts on airport revenues and operations due to TNCs (ACRP Research Report 215: Transportation Network Companies (TNCs): Impact to Airport Revenue and Operations – Reference Guide), research was needed to explore in more detail how airports may need to rethink and potentially generate additional non-aeronautical revenue to compensate for the decrease.
Research for the guidebook under ACRP Project 03-47 was led by InterVISTAS in association with Walker Consultants, JLL, Innovât International and DWU Consultants and included surveys, interviews, focus groups, and case studies. As part of the research, they identified and conducted a series of case studies to investigate examples of converted parking facilities or other re-purposed, renovated or redeveloped parking facilities used to generate revenues or changes in demand. The research effort focused on interviews with staff from airports, parking operations, parking developers, equipment manufacturers and airport planning and parking consultants as well as the development of a method to evaluate alternative commercial vehicle loading configurations within existing parking structures. The research also addressed forecasting methods for future parking demands and looked at various management models to address best practices for reducing expenses and risks for potential excessive parking capacity. Lastly, the research reviewed various technologies available, such as innovative payment systems in online pre-booking systems and revenue management systems to offset revenue reductions.
The appendices provide an annotated bibliography as well as a listing of Abbreviations and acronyms and a glossary.
