Royal_Oak_MI_Parking_Consultant_RFP_-_Brochure.pdf

ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN

Request for Proposals - Parking System Consultant

The City of Royal Oak’s popular downtown business district is renowned for its eclectic blend of shops, restaurants, sidewalk cafes, art galleries, and entertainment landmarks. The City’s downtown parking system consists of approximately 2500 spaces spread throughout five parking garages, and approximately 1400 spaces combined along the curb and in downtown surface lots, plus approximately 200 legacy meters on the periphery. The current on-street parking system is pay-by-space centric, while the surface lot system is lot specific. The parking garages utilize a gated pay on exit ticket system with kiosks available for alternative payments.

The City is in the process of transitioning to an entirely new downtown parking system as its relationship with the current parking system and vendor are ending in December of 2025. The City is seeking to engage an experienced and expert parking system consultant to assist and guide the City through the process of evaluating needs, recommending systems that meet parking needs, helping prepare RFP’s for those parking systems and other educational and public engagement activities that are part of that process. This could be accomplished in phases based on the City’s current circumstances and requirements.

Key Considerations:

1. Transition Flexibility and Phased Implementation:

Since this will be a complete overhaul, there’s an opportunity to be flexible in the transition. Based on various needs of the different parking systems in the downtown, a phased approach may allow for a smoother and quicker initial transition. Time is of the essence as the City’s current parking system will be ceasing at the end of 2025 and the City desires to have a new system installed and operational at that time. The City is also interested in exploring more immediate options for its parking garages.

2. General Considerations:

• Consultant must have knowledge and experience with variety of systems operating on streets, in parking lots and in parking garages.

• Consultant must be able to advise on process and timetable taking into consideration the need to have a new system installed by the end of 2025 and consultant should be available immediately

• Consultant should have access to existing consumer preference data

• Consultant has experience with identifying prospective vendors and drafting Requests for Proposals for parking systems.

3. System Design Requirements:

The new parking system should be operationally efficient, user-friendly, and easy to administer.

All systems shall be unified and have the same customer facing usability and shall process all forms and types of payments through one unified payment system to the city. At this time the City does not want to rely on citation automation.

ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN • PARKING SYSTEM CONSULTANT RFP

Scope of Services:

On-Street and Off-Street Parking System Selection:

● Pay Station Product Selection & Mobile Pay System:

Facilitate a competitive quote process to select a pay station provider and implementation/support services.

The consultant should present at least 2 options, ideally 3, with recommendations on permitted length of parking sessions, number and location of pay stations and eventual EV charging station integration.

● Pay Station Features to Consider:

Pay-by-plate functionality Licensing fees Solar-powered pay stations are highly preferred Integration with mobile pay providers (options should include pay by QR, text-to-pay, and mobile apps) Ability to accept both coins and cards Perform an MOR fee analysis to ensure the system’s efficiency

● Mobile Pay o Strong mobile app presence.

o Ability to help Royal Oak be a leader in text to pay/QR to pay options. It's imperative that the City's parking brand be viewed as user-centric and simple - it should inspire other cities to consider the Royal Oak system.

o Centralized admin platform - Royal Oak would like to see the revenue streams for the system in one portal or dashboard.

o Allows for citation payments via app, Venmo or other virtual payment methods.

ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN • PARKING SYSTEM CONSULTANT RFP

ROYAL OAK, MICHIGAN • Parking System Consultant RFP

Other Considerations:

Parking Enforcement:

• The police department will oversee enforcement for the immediate future.

They are interested in license plate recognition (LPR) systems and simplified citation issuance/processing that integrates seamlessly with the Court’s JIS system.

Parking Garage Systems:

• A cost-benefit analysis should be performed comparing gate and gateless systems, outlining the pros and cons of each. Given that the current parking systems in the City’s parking garagess are no longer supported and are experiencing operational issues, this is a high priority that would ideally be addressed first. The City would like a recommendation on piloting a gateless garage, if that would enable a cost effective and timely transition. Any parking garage systems must be able to incorporate the same or similar end user interface and be able to integrate with on street and surface lot parking systems.

Other Consulting:

•Solicit proposals for a parking demand analysis of the downtown •Conduct a parking rate assessment including dynamic pricing options •Future planning and incorporation of EV charging recommendations

Operator Oversight:

Once the system components are selected, the City is open to hiring an operator to assist its dedicated internal parking management team in customer service, collections, system administration (including contract management), and strategic planning/consulting.