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If if I was trying to solve this problem and actually cared about the students I would do some capacity based pricing. Almost always free, as you approach park
by fossuser 7y ago
If if I was trying to solve this problem and actually cared about the students I would do some capacity based pricing.
Almost always free, as you approach parking capacity price increases. You could probably also set up a system to text people who have been there more than X hours that they will start to be charged due to high capacity.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> You could probably also set up a system to text people who have been there more than X hours that they will start to be charged due to high capacity. Your plan is to have pricing that is not knowable in advance, and assess it against the students retroactively? I'm not sure it's possible to come up with a worse plan.
- cortesoft 7y agoI mean, the plan could be to destroy random cars if the parking lot is full, to make space for more. That might be slightly worse than this person's plan.
- fossuser 7y agoYou can still know a range in advance and you can alert people on their phone before charging them - I'd much prefer this to having to pay all the time even when capacity is low.
- acdha 7y agoThe problem is that people need to know in advance to change their behavior: tell them that today will cost $20 and people will take the campus shuttle, bike, or walk. Tell them that you’re charging more after they got there just makes it stressful and won’t change behavior unless it happens often enough to be highly predictable - just like many people drive hoping traffic won’t be bad today because they’re prone to dismissing bad events as outliers.
- fossuser 7y agoI think this is a fair criticism and if the goal is to change behavior then I agree. If the goal is to make sure there's always a spot available while having the lowest possible price to guarantee that then I think variable pricing based on capacity is better.
- cortesoft 7y ago> I would do some capacity based pricing. How do you think parking prices are set? They set a price that results in the parking lot mostly full most of the time. They even vary prices by time of day, sometimes. Also, school parking usage is pretty predictable. Students are parked there while they go to class. Are you expecting them to leave class if parking gets too expensive?
- fossuser 7y agoIf that's true then they're already doing it and they should have it free sometimes. I'd suspect that the goal may be generating maximum revenue rather than capacity at lowest price though. If the goal was variable pricing so you get a spot at lowest price (free when possible) then I'd be happy with that. You could have an upper bound price per lot if you wanted people to know what they might have to pay worst case, but uncapped would be interesting if you want there to always be a spot available.