Why Do Garages Offer Early Bird Parking? (Benefits & Other Special Offers)

Last Updated on July 19, 2023 By Emma W. Thomas

Garages offer early bird parking to incentivize early arrivals and optimize space utilization. Early bird rates are typically discounted for those who park during specified early hours, encouraging customers to arrive early when parking demand is lower. This helps the garage manage peak hours efficiently and fill available spaces before the rush, ensuring maximum revenue. Additionally, it benefits commuters and shoppers by providing cost-effective parking options.

Benefits Of Early Bird Parking

Benefits Of Early Bird Parking

It Is Cheaper Than Daily Parking

The early bird parking rates are cheaper than any other rates offered at parking garages. Day parking and hourly parking are usually expensive as the car owners are likely to be moving in and out of the parking garage during the day.

Aligns Well With Working Hours

The early bird parking has specific hours that you are required to get to the garage and have your car parked. Also, you cannot leave during the day. When you go during the day or outside the required times for an early bird, you will be required to pay the regular price.

Early bird parking is good for you if you work from 9 am to around 5 pm. You get the opportunity to park your car in the morning and then pick it up in the evening at discounted prices. 

Early Bird Parking Has A Fixed Rate

For early bird parking, a fixed rate is provided. The fixed rate helps you manage your finances and know how much you will need for parking during a specific period.

The fixed rate eliminates the uncertainty of slots that will randomly charge you a different amount every time you park there.

You Do Not Have To Pre-Book Online

You are not required to book online the early bird parking to get a parking spot. You can turn up in the morning during the specified hours and park your car at early bird rates.

The Early Bird Parking Service Is Available All Week

Parking garages offer the early bird parking option throughout the week. You do not have to worry about availability on some days and unavailable on other days. This gives you peace of mind whenever you work or run errands for long hours. 

What Is The Reason Behind Early Bird Parking?

The reason behind early bird parking is to optimize parking facility usage and incentivize early arrivals. This approach benefits both the parking facility operators and the customers. Here are the reasons in detail:

  1. Space Utilization: Early bird parking encourages customers to arrive during off-peak hours when parking demand is lower. By filling up spaces early in the day, the parking facility can maximize its utilization and avoid turning away potential customers during busy periods.
  2. Revenue Optimization: Offering discounted rates for early arrivals helps generate revenue during non-peak hours when parking occupancy is typically lower. This additional income can contribute significantly to the overall profitability of the parking facility.
  3. Traffic Management: Early bird parking spreads out the arrival time of customers, reducing congestion during peak hours. This helps to maintain a smoother flow of vehicles in and out of the parking facility, minimizing traffic jams and improving overall efficiency.
  4. Customer Incentive: Early bird rates provide a cost-effective option for customers who need to park for an extended period, such as commuters or shoppers. It gives them an added incentive to arrive early, save money on parking fees, and potentially find better parking spots.
  5. Promotes Punctuality: By encouraging customers to arrive early, early bird parking promotes punctuality and time-consciousness. This can be especially beneficial in urban areas with high traffic congestion, where arriving early can be crucial to avoiding delays.
  6. Enhanced Customer Experience: Providing discounted rates for early bird parking improves the overall customer experience, as it gives customers a feeling of value and satisfaction for planning their day efficiently and saving on parking costs.
  7. Competitive Advantage: Parking facilities that offer early bird rates may gain a competitive advantage over nearby facilities that do not provide such incentives. This can attract more customers and increase the facility’s market share.
  8. Environmental Impact: By spreading out customer arrivals, early bird parking can contribute to reducing the environmental impact associated with excessive idling and emissions from vehicles waiting to find parking during peak hours.

Pricing Strategies For Parking Garages

Parking spots are charged differently depending on their location.  Therefore, parking garage management can come up with different ways to put up their charges.

They may charge higher prices for convenient spaces to favor priority consumers. These spaces can be near the exit or entrances.

For such, parking garages can apply performance-based parking prices. This pricing strategy is set to ensure that at least 10% of the spaces in the parking garage are left unoccupied.

Prime spaces used for short-term purposes are charged much higher than other spots. This is done to ensure that people parking for extended hours are not charged too much. Again it ensures the customers parking for a short time are not undercharged. 

A short-term charge can be 5-20 dollars per hour with a 2-hour parking limit in major cities for convenient spaces. The early bird parking is charged around 20 to 30 dollars starting from 6 am to 10 am and exiting from 3 pm to 7 pm. The timing might vary from one garage to the other. 

Parking charges can start as low as 1-2 dollars an hour in other cities. Progressive charging is common in such instances, starting at 1 dollar for the first hour and increasing as time goes by. 

The Parking Garage Offers

The Parking Garage Offers

Parking garages can come up with different offers to keep customers happy and attract more.

Some of the garages parking offers include:

Student specials

Garages mainly offer student specials near a learning institution. They come up with lower rates to favor students who would be their target customers. However, to take advantage of the offer, you will have to prove you are a student by showing off student’s identification card. 

Weekend And Night Specials

Weekend and night specials are provided during events or parties. The party or event host ensures that the garage management is aware of it. Such an offer makes it easy for people attending in that area to find parking spaces quicker.

Weekend specials are done to help people who stay around the garage. They are given a special rate to encourage them to leave their cars parked all weekend until Monday morning.

Monthly Parking Special

Parking garages offer this service to the most frequent customers. The rates are subsidized and payable monthly to make it easy for management and car owners.  

These offers, including the early bird offer, help the management maintain satisfied customers and help the garage keep doing business.

Final Thoughts

The Early bird parking at parking garages improves customer service and helps maintain order in the parking slots. Customers who use the early bird parking are the ones who do not intend on leaving the area during the day. They are either working in the surrounding area in a 9 to 5 job or have an entire day’s activities in the same region.

References:

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-parking-garages-offer-early-bird-parking-and-why-do-you-have-to-park-until-a-certain-time