Allocated parking can be an effective system for controlling which vehicles go in which spaces. It’s why it’s often used for residential parking areas.
The difference with business parking, however, is that the company has more control. You’re not dealing with an easily solvable problem where you can trace each car directly to each house. Employees come and go, shifts change, and the general demand for spaces rises and falls. Without a structured approach, this often leads to frustration, wasted time, and underused capacity — even in car parks that appear “full”.
With this in mind, is the allocated parking approach working for your company? Let’s explore how it works, what the alternatives are, and what the most effective approaches might actually be.
What Are Allocated Parking Spaces?
Allocated parking spaces are parking spots that are specifically reserved or assigned to a particular vehicle, person or team. In the context of a business parking area, such allocations can refer to:
- Company vehicles. When shared by employees, these are nearly always stored on-site, so an allocated parking spot makes logistical sense.
- Dedicated individuals. Dedicated parking spaces are often given as an employee benefit, especially for the most senior roles in larger organisation.
- Specific teams. In other cases, it might be prudent to allocate parking spaces to a specific team. This typically happens when the team has specific on-site duties or an important role in the company.
Physically, there also needs to be some way to tell individual spots apart. A typical allocated parking bay solves this with general numerical designations, although it’s also not uncommon for names to be labelled, as well.
However, as we’ll see later, the latter is not required at all, so long as companies have a workplace parking system that keeps this spot reserved, when necessary.
Allocated Parking Space vs Shared Parking Space
The alternative to allocated parking spaces is shared parking. The latter is what occurs in most parking areas, where individual spots are not assigned or otherwise limited to specific individuals or groups within the company.
But shared parking in its rawest form is also not an effective solution. When the car park is a free-for-all engagement, it typically ends up benefitting the company early birds. This subsequently motivates staff to arrive early to ‘claim’ spots, or become disgruntled at an increasingly futile parking situation.
The best approach, as we’ll explore shortly, is through combining both shared and allocated approaches to optimise your limited parking availability for the wider benefit of the workforce.
How Allocated Parking Works in a Company Car Park
In general, businesses will use allocated parking spaces combined with shared pools, in order to maximise their parking lot capacity and efficiency.
That being said, it’s worth highlighting the differences between a traditional setup and that of a more dynamic and modernised car park.
Traditional Allocated Parking
You’ve likely seen this set up in various company setups. There will be numerous parking spaces allocated to key individuals, with the rest of the employees sharing from the remaining parking area.
Whether this is effective or not depends on the business and its unique circumstances, not least of all how many employees are left sharing the remaining spaces.
The most common criticisms occur when these reserved spaces sit empty. If the specific individuals their allocated to don’t come in to work that day, other employees aren’t allowed to use their spaces, which leads to resentment and a growing negative impact within the company.
Dynamic Allocated Parking
Most companies address the issues of allocated parking by implementing a dynamic system. There are two main aspects here:
- First, it enables other staff to use free spaces when the allocated individuals aren’t actively using them.
- Secondly, it enables employees to reserve parking spots on a day-by-day basis, ensuring they know whether or not they have a spot each day, cutting out the frustrations of arriving at a full parking lot.
We previously wrote about assigned parking spot solutions, where we covered the needs for a user-friendly system that lets staff confirm if they’re intending to use a given parking space the night before. This is how such systems work; when spaces become free, they’re given to the next employee on the waiting list.
Legal Considerations Around Allocated Parking Spaces
Before we move any further, it’s worth paying attention to any legal requirements a parking area might have, even if it’s privately owned and non-commercialised.
The most obvious and immediate is disabled parking.
- In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 requires employers to make “reasonable adjustments” for disabled employees and visitors. Whilst there’s no exact numbers, various guidelines range between 1 disabled parking space per 15-25 employees.
- In the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act is much more definitive. Federal law requires 1 accessible space per 25, with more requirements for lots with over 500 parking spaces. What’s more, 1 out of every 6 of these spaces must be van accessible.
- In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act requires 1 accessible space per 50, although this varies based on building classifications.
- In the EU, similar laws also apply, with each country having its own specific requirements.
If demand exceeds supply (for example, more badge holders than designated spaces), employers must take additional reasonable steps — such as reallocating spaces or adjusting policy — rather than operating a simple first-come system.
In other words, there’s an expectation to have disabled or accessible spaces available, and to keep them specifically for badge holders. Fortunately, most (if not all) of these laws also put responsibility on the building owners, not the companies leasing. The latter is required to make the reasonable adjustments, but it’s the former that needs to help provide those modified spaces in most circumstances.
Common Challenges with an Allocated Parking Area
Relying on dedicated allocated parking is not without its share of difficulties. The more your parking garage or lot becomes reserved for key individuals, the more the following issues will arise.
Empty Spaces
As mentioned earlier, it can be frustrating for employees seeing empty spaces that are still technically “taken”. If an individual is on holiday, working remotely, sick or otherwise not coming to work on a given day, their space sits unused. A dynamic parking reservation system can solve this, and avoid employees feeling underappreciated.
Policy Confusion
If the rules aren’t clear, it can lead to disputes between employees who feel the rules aren’t consistently enforced. Better knowledge can help staff understand the parking situation, and adapt accordingly.
Perceived Inequality
The more spots that can’t be accessed, the more annoyed employees without their own allocations become. When parking is linked to seniority, and spaces become limited, it feels too much like a perk and not enough like a functional aspect of getting to work each day.
Confusion for Visitors
If allocated parking spaces don’t have proper signage, or visitors aren’t given any other instructions, they can often leave their vehicle in the wrong space. This is a simple misunderstanding that can be readily avoided with a little preparation.
Administrative Burden
If a proper system isn’t in place, someone has to be responsible for the company car park. When this falls on office administrators, without an effective solution for assigning parking spaces, it can become a significant time commitment.
Alternatives to Permanently Allocated Parking Spaces
We’ve already mentioned dynamic parking systems, so let’s explore how these work in more detail. An effective parking management system works by managing parking capacity, adapting as spaces become available so that more employee vehicles can find spaces.
Your company can implement one or more approaches.
Rotational Allocation
When implementing a shared pool, you can ensure that each employee gets a fixed number of days in any given period where they are able to reserve a space. Done right, this ensures that each driver gets equal opportunities to park on-site.
The exact limit depends on your company, but here’s a rough approach. Take the total number of unreserved spaces (S), multiply it by the number of working days in the period (D), and then divide that figure by the number of employees sharing those spaces (E). This gives you an approximate number of days each employee can reserve a space within that time frame.
R = (S × D) / E
Where:
- R = reservation days per employee
- S = number of shared (unreserved) spaces
- D = number of working days in the period
- E = number of employees competing for those spaces
For example, if you have 20 spaces and 40 employees and you want a fortnightly rotation, you can multiply 20 by 10 (assuming two 5 day workweeks) and then divide this by 40. The answer would be 5, which means that each employee can reserve a spot 5 days every 2 weeks.
Assuming you keep priority groups and their own spaces out of this equation, you can get an easy answer that solves parking fairness.
Role-Based Priority Access
There may also be staff that need to be physically presence due to the nature of the role. These critical personnel, such as operational staff, benefit the most from their own allocated parking. This can be done at a team level and, if using a shared pool, you can implement a process that enables unused spots to be used ad-hoc by other employees.
Time-Based Allocation
In shift-based organisations, you may consider having parking spots reserved in similar time periods. This then ensures that a person from the morning shift and a person from the night shift, for example, can both use the same space on a given day.
The only challenge here is to ensure that there’s suitable time for employees to arrive and/or leave when shifts overlap. If one shift starts the moment another ends, it would be very difficult to enable such effective parking between the two.
How to Manage Your Company Car Park Effectively
If the above is the theoretical, now it’s time to talk practical. There are a number of effective and easy-to-implement solutions that can turn your traditional allocated parking into a more adaptable and versatile solution for the entire company.
A Shared Parking Pool
Let’s start with the most important factor: shared parking. If the majority of your spaces are allocated to individuals, then there isn’t enough space for the general workforce.
You can enhance your shared pool by analysing which spaces are currently reserved and which can be opened up. For example, some dedicated spaces might not have any practical purpose anymore, and some may simply have spaces that sit empty more often than not.
Clearly Defined Parking Policies
Next, you’re going to need a set of rules to enforce how your parking area is used. A company parking policy can detail key criteria such as:
- Who can reserve spaces and how often.
- How far in advance employees can reserve spaces.
- What employees need to do if they’re not using a space.
- Which groups or individuals are exempt.
This is essential for enforcing fairness. With rules are unclear or ambiguous, people will get confused, misunderstandings will be exploited and you’ll be back to where you started.
Waitlist Systems
We’re assuming that you have more employees or vehicles than available space. This is why we’ve focused on fair availability over a given period. So what happens when an employee isn’t driving to work the next day, but they have a space reserved?
A waitlist system is the simple answer. It lets employees show their intention to come to work and, if a space becomes available, they can take it. Ideally, this requires the first employee to give up their space the day or evening before, alongside a system that notifies an individual in the waitlist. Do not notify the entire waitlist, as a free for all that late in the day is essentially the same as first come, first served.
Automation
In order for all of the above to work effectively, you need a system that can automate many of the processes. A digital platform that gives staff access, but only inline with your parking policy, frees up your time and enforces a sense of fairness.
Parkalot, for example, is user friendly parking management app that makes it easy for employees to reserve spaces, with unused spaces going back into the parking pool to give the most staff the chance to use the limited spaces available.
Additionally:
- Employees can access the booking system in the handy app, or via our numerous integrations, such as via Slack or Teams.
- Administrators can set custom rules for different groups, keeping key allocations and ensuring fair usage across the wider pool.
- Keep track of more unique parking features, such as electric vehicle charger bays, disabled parking spots, and more.
Allocated Parking that Works
Are you looking to make your parking area work for you? If you want the office commute to be less stressful, and for employees to know if their vehicles have space before they head off to work, digital apps like Parkalot can be a very effective solution.
Allocated parking works best when:
- Certain roles genuinely require guaranteed access
- Legal compliance spaces are protected
- The majority of spaces remain flexible
- A digital system prevents underuse
This also requires paces to be available to the wider pool. Spaces reserved for dedicated spaces have their place, but it’s important to operate on a level that balances the wider needs for the greatest efficiency.
Fortunately, it’s easily solvable with a few policy and system changes.
