The Car Parking Business: Facts and Stats from Industry Leaders
The feasibility of starting or expanding a car parking company varies in accordance with the exact location. Nevertheless, the United States as a whole is one of the best nations to be in that line of work. If you already have a parking lot or two, you should consider making sustainable growth plans for the business in 2022.
These observations and suggestions are based on factual statistics made public by the automotive industry and federal government records. The opportunity for growth within the sector is massive and before anything else, let’s get started by looking at a few key stats first.
There are More Cars in the Country than Drivers
By the end of 2021, over 289.5 million registered vehicles were estimated to be registered and running on US roads. The concurrent US population at the same time was roughly 332.5 million, meaning that there was a citizen to car ratio of 1: 0.87 in early 2022. Amazing as that ratio is, this isn’t even a proper comparison since the total population includes everyone who does not, cannot, or isn’t allowed to drive as well.
Therefore, a true comparison would be to see how many registered drivers were active by the end of last year. Close to 235 million drivers were driving 289.5 million cars, putting the ratio of registered drivers to registered cars in the US at 1:1.23.
What does all that mean for a parking lot owner? There are more cars in the country than there are licensed drivers, which means that if you have plans to grow your parking lot business in 2022, there is definitely room for accommodating that growth. For a state-by-state guide, check out the stats here.
Raising Profits
So, what are the most important factors that affect your parking lot’s capacity to attract new customers while retaining the old ones? There are several actually, but maintaining an even, clean, and uncracked surface space with clear, bright demarcations and helpful signs is more important for a car park than anything else.
This isn’t as easy as it sounds, unfortunately, because both concrete and asphalt pavements tend to crack often with time and use. The more repairs you have to make, the more those maintenance costs will cut into your profits, so experts suggest:
- Investing in high-quality construction materials from the outset while paving the lot
- Bringing down the frequency at which repaired cracks reopen by applying pavement preservation products that cost more but last longer
- Regularly checking for cracks and rechecking previous repair sites to ensure that a neglected crack isn’t getting wider somewhere
To know exactly which pavement preservation products are the best options for repairing your car parking lot(s), contact W.R. Meadows. They have been building roads and sealing cracks on major national highways and basement parking lots alike since 1926.
Should You Shift Business to a New Parking Lot?
Before investing money into a new parking lot, it is imperative to consider whether there is room for improvement within the car park which you already own and run. Any money invested in a new parking lot will carry the same reputation as the original, which can either be a pro or a con, depending on what kind of a reputation your current lot has in the market.
However, there are exceptional situations. For example, if the lot is far too old and damaged for repair, it might be a better idea to shift operations to a new site altogether. At the same time, it might even be a good idea to shift your business to a different part of the city, state, or country, provided that the opportunity at your new place of operation can justify the costs associated with that shift.
