Computerized Parking at Airports May Save Millions
A $4-million computer system is being installed at parking lots at three city airports to prevent stealing and cheating that costs the Los Angeles Department of Airports millions of dollars a year.
Department officials say the new system, which operates by entering license plate numbers into a central computer, will help combat unscrupulous cashiers and customers who for years have put a big dent in parking lot revenues. No more, for instance, will the motorist who fibs about losing his ticket find it as easy to drive off without paying what he owes.
‘Closing Some Gaps’
“We’re closing some of the gaps,” said Joseph Clair Jr., who oversees parking lot operations for the department. “I’ll never say we’re closing them all, but we’re closing a lot of them.”
Clair predicted that the computer system will pay for itself within a year by boosting the annual take by 10% to 15%. Last year, the department collected $38 million in lot revenues at its three airports--Los Angeles International, Ontario International and Van Nuys--meaning that the extra revenue could amount to $5 million or more.
The computer system is expected to be in full operation by early next month at Los Angeles International, which accounted for $32.3 million of the parking lot revenue, and will be activated soon afterward at Ontario and Van Nuys, Clair said.
Under the new system, designed by a Washington-based parking consulting firm, Cerand & Co. Inc., smaller computers at the airports will feed a steady stream of information to a larger computer capable of spitting out data ranging from when a particular vehicle entered a particular lot to when a cashier’s money drawer gets stuck.
As a precaution, only a handful of people will have access to the main computer’s programming manual, Clair said.
“I have told them to guard it like they would an NFL team’s playbook,” he said.
Similar computer systems are in use at airports in San Francisco, Denver and elsewhere. At O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, lot revenues have jumped 15% a year since the system was installed about five years ago, according to James Davern, director of aviation parking for Chicago.
Los Angeles airport officials say their computer will enable them to keep better track of thieves’ constantly changing bag of tricks. Ralph Burke Associates, an Illinois-based parking consulting firm, has drawn up a list of no less that “17 generic and 230 different discreet forms” of cheating at parking lots.
“They sit there all day long trying to figure out a way to beat the system--the cashiers and the parkers,” said Samuel Greenberg, who has served on the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners for 15 years.
The department, which owns seven parking lots with 25,000 spaces at LAX alone, contracts with a private company to operate the lots and has no say in who is fired or hired.
Over the years, scores of cashiers have been caught stealing, Clair said, with popular methods including substitution of lower-priced tickets, which they obtain on the sly, for higher-priced ones, then pocketing the difference. Others simply unplug the cash register, making it impossible for airport authorities to keep track of how much money should have been collected.
“Any time you put someone on a cash register, you have problems because you have money,” Clair said.
Despite the theft problems, airport officials are pleased overall with the lot management firm, Parking Concepts Inc., Clair said. The company did not return several phone calls asking for comment on the new computer system.
Cheating by patrons, Clair said, sometimes involves the purchase of stolen tickets from airport employees to show that their vehicles have been parked at the airport for only a short time when, in reality, the vehicle may have been there for days.
Under the new system, the license plate numbers of all cars in the lot will be recorded at least once a day.
When a car exits, the cashier will have to punch the license plate number into the computer or no transaction can occur and the gate will not open. To ensure that the cashiers are punching in the correct license plate numbers, video monitors installed outside the booths will be aimed at the vehicle plates.
Although the department for years has kept track of license plate numbers to make sure long-term parkers do not cheat--by buying a stolen ticket or claiming their own was lost--cashiers have been required to leaf through stacks of paper to determine if a particular plate is listed.
Some cashiers simply have not bothered to check the list; others have found a plate listed and then cut a deal with the customer, pocketing part of a reduced fee, Clair said.
Under the new system, if someone lies about how long he has been in the lot or attempts to use a stolen ticket to save money, the computer will detect it.
