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WMATA Real-Time Parking
Information Feasibility Study
Chapter 6: PILOT PROJECT CONCEPT
Vendor Staff
Parking operations services at the West Falls Church station are currently provided by a
vendor under contract. The contract length is for two years, and it is not expected that
the contract can be easily modified. Any additional responsibilities for the contract staff
would necessitate a contract amendment process. Because a pilot project is not
expected to become operational for at least 18 months, the initial implications are
minimal, as this would roughly coincide with the term of the current contract.
It is expected that contract staff at the parking facility would assume new responsibilities
under a subsequent contract. The following responsibilities are anticipated in the long
term and should be specified in the next contract, with an expected cost implication.
• Contracted staff should arrive earlier than 10 AM.
• The first staffer should be responsible for providing initial checks of the system
on a daily basis to ensure it is working properly. Any issues would need to be
addressed by WMATA staff or other contractors.
• Contracted staff would be responsible for updating information for known issues.
For example, if snow plowing has left 10 spaces unusable, on-site staff should be
able to input the needed information to ensure that the parking information
system knows how many spaces are available.
• Operators should be available to confirm the number of occupied spaces after
the last train has arrived. This will ensure that the system is recalibrated to start
with the right number of spaces the next morning.
These additional responsibilities are all related to long term operations, and do not need
to be addressed in a contract revision for the short term. However, any implementation
schedule should add sufficient time to ensure that contract staff take care of these
additional responsibilities.
Potential for Growth
The requirements developed in earlier chapters assume that the full system would be
implemented over the long term. The requirements identified in this chapter are solely
for the pilot implementation. This leaves a large gap between the first installation and
the long-term potential.
The simplest expansion of the system is to deploy additional smart parking systems at
additional facilities. Therefore, the pilot implementation should create a central system
that is capable of receiving information from many additional stations. Two caveats
apply to this statement. The first is that the system cannot be tested for multiple
locations until the second deployment. The second is that it is assumed in all technology
applications that systems have a relatively short life cycle (e.g., 3-5 years). The initial
system deployed with the pilot study would need, at a minimum, the hardware and
software upgraded or changed prior to the third or fourth installation (depending on the
programming of additional facilities). The pilot implementation should be adequate for
the initial few installations, but will likely need some upgrades or improvements well
before a full system implementation.
Most of the future applications identified in Chapter 5 are third party applications. It is
assumed that WMATA will continue to keep its web pages current in terms of
Page 6-20 June 2009