The times of searching O’Hare Airport’s key parking garage and remote a lot to an elusive space could eventually be coming to an end — at least for all those motorists prepared to pay a premium cost.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has issued a “request for proposals” (RFP) for the direction and functioning of public parking and ground transportation at O’Hare that increases the specter of higher costs for superior support.
Interested bidders for the ten-year contract were asked to introduce a strategy to “maximize earnings” that comprises the use of “dynamic pricing, frequent-parking plans, cross-promotional initiatives and additional services” to lure drivers to park at O’Hare rather than choosing more economical, off-site passengers operated by Inter-Park and Wally Parking.
Sources said the RFP is expected to create “a wide variety of different business models” to induce “higher utilization rates.” That includes using “new technologies through a program” or “dynamic pricing models” to increase parking lot usage rates and revenue.
“Dynamic pricing models are only 1 example of a plan for bringing additional customers who otherwise may not pay to use airport tons, and also to incentive use on the weekends,” the source stated.
The ten-year contract is going to have an “enlarged scope to coincide with the higher traffic and services” expected to be made by a multi-modal centre scheduled to open this autumn.
Even the Department of Aviation plans to buy fourteen “green/environmentally-friendly buses to provide shuttle service to 2 market parking lots, in addition to the new multi-modal facility” at the brand new consolidated rental automobile campus.
“The reach of the latest RFP reveals both the accession of 2,400 parking areas at the new integrated transit centre, including the busing, maintenance and other services required to run it,” Aviation Department spokesperson Lauren Huffman wrote in an email.
“It is our aim…to make all of our ground transportation facilities simpler and readily accessible for passengers traveling through O’Hare.”
O’Hare currently has 21,319 revenue-generating parking spaces, 9,302 of these at a indoor parking garage found in the terminal core.
The remaining spaces are located in surface lots. An additional 2,676 indoor garage spaces are under construction at the consolidated rental automobile campus.
The inter-modal centre — served by an expansion of the O’Hare people mover program — will likely ease congestion at the terminal core by removing an estimated 1.3 million vehicle trips every year.
For years, O’Hare parking and ground transportation has been the exclusive purview of Standard Parking. The business has received $360 million in city contracts since 2002, $53.2 million of it all because 2013.
Three years ago, the City Council slapped a tax of ” not greater than ten per cent of gross earnings” on parking companies that have set up shop just outside O’Hare — in some instances outside the town to avoid the town’s parking tax.
With no “airport access arrangement” that contains the ten percent fee, off-airport parking support providers were no longer allowed to use airport roadways and facilities to better pick up drop off and support passengers.
For air travelers and loved those that chose to pay more to the convenience of parking around the grounds of O’Hare, the ordinance approved a “railroad app” with a charge of not as “$10-per-day and applicable taxes” along with parking rates.
Aviation Commissioner Ginger Evans was likewise approved to set up an incentive-laden “frequent parker program” that moved outside valet services to include vehicle washing, detailing and “light maintenance services” for business travellers and regular memberships.
It’s not clear if some of those services have ever been provided. But there is more coming from the new parking arrangement.
The booking system and dynamic pricing applications have the capability to alleviate an O’Hare parking encounter that’s been known to shut the world’s largest parking garage during busy, mid-week travel times.
The winning bidder should also handle visitors, manage taxicab staging areas and supply at the very least a dozen cab “starters” whose primary duty is to accumulate “airport departure tax Quotes out of commercial vehicles” that proceed through the terminal core.
The contractor is further fees with staffing and keeping O’Hare’s “license plate stock system.”
The machine captures plate images upon entry and exit and cross-checks those images together with the revenue management system. It’s used to stop fraud, locate lost vehicles and assist city crews identify vehicles belonging to scofflaws parked at O’Hare therefore the Denver boot can be applied.
Standard Parking has made $201,718 in political donations in the last few years. That includes $21,500 to governmental capital controlled by Ald. Edward Burke (14th), chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee.
