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December 4, 2012 - Vol 4, Issue 25 |
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Sponsored by | |
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IPI Joins Merchants Payments Coalition to Combat Unfair Swipe Fees |
IPI announced today it has joined the Washington, D.C.-based Merchants Payments Coalition in an effort to fight unfair swipe fees imposed by big banks and credit card companies. The Merchants Payments Coalition is a group of retailers, supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores, fuel stations, online merchants, and other businesses that are fighting for a more competitive and transparent card system that works better for consumers and merchants alike. The coalition's member associations collectively represent approximately 2.7 million facilities with 50 million employees. "We're joining the Merchants Payments Coalition to strengthen our voice on an issue that is critically important to our members. Unfair price-fixed swipe fees are hurting parking businesses and customers," said Shawn Conrad, CAE, executive director of the International Parking Institute. Read the full news release here. Read below to register for a webinar on this important topic.
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IPI's Next Webinar: Credit and Debit Swipe Fees: Combating Invisible Costs |
Credit and debit card swipe fees are an enormous (and growing) cost for parking facility operators and their customers. Swipe fees are hidden and largely unpredictable for those who accept credit and debit cards, and business managers' abilities to negotiate rates or terms of card acceptance are limited, resulting in excessive per-transaction fee increases over the past decade.
To help combat this, IPI recently joined the Merchants Payments Coalition (MPC), a varied group of businesses fighting against unfair credit and debit card swipe fees to foster a more competitive and transparent card system.
MPC views the passage of debit card fee reforms -- often referred to as the Durbin amendment -- that were included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act as a major step forward to creating a more fair and reasonable payments marketplace despite poor implementation by the Federal Reserve in their final rulemaking, which provided the major card brands latitude to increase rates on small ticket debit transactions.
MPC experts will host an IPI webinar on swipe fees, what they mean for parking operators, and the best ways to combat unfair practices. This webinar will cover:
- Background on the MPC and on swipe fee issues for merchants and customers.
- A legislative, regulatory, and legal overview.
- Small-ticket debit issues: how they affect the parking industry and what's being done to address them.
- The next steps: how parking professionals can get involved and make the most of their card acceptance programs.
Instructors:
Liz Garner, director of commerce and entrepreneurship, National Restaurant Association
Douglas Kantor, partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
$35.00 for IPI members; $50.00 for Non-members
Wednesday, December 12 at 2:00 p.m. EST/ 11:00 a.m. PST (60 minutes)
For more information and to register!
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An iPad for Your Thoughts |
 To date, IPI has received an overwhelming response to the Parking Job Analysis Survey. Participation takes less than 15 minutes. We believe you will find it interesting and informative, and we can promise that it will benefit you and every member by defining and establishing greater professional credibility for our entire industry. Specifically, the results will describe what critical tasks parking professionals really do, how they do them, and how often. This will:
- Define the core competencies shared by all parking professionals.
- Produce sophisticated and current standards for professional certification and career advancement.
Your responses (due by December 14, 2012) will be completely anonymous. After completing the survey, you can register to win one of five new 64GB Apple iPad minis (Wi-Fi, cellular-ready) as thanks for your participation. (The drawing registration and your survey responses are never linked.)
To participate in the survey, click here! |
Last Chance! Register for IPI's Latin Parking Conference & Expo |
 IPI's Second Annual Latin Parking Conference & Expo, Dec. 9-12 at The Ritz Carlton, San Juan, Puerto Rico, was designed as a fast-track introduction into the world of parking for a wide range of decision makers in Latin countries who want to re-think parking to generate revenue and learn about new approaches, new tools, and new technologies. The conference features tabletop exhibits, educational sessions, facility tours, and business-boosting networking opportunities. Learn more and register at latin.parking.org.
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Thanks for Volunteering |
IPI's call for volunteers to participate in the new IPI and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Task Force yielded a fantastic response. The task force will discuss how ITS and parking can better work together more seamlessly. They will explore many opportunities for collaboration. We look forward to sharing the efforts of the task force.
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Enter by December 31: IPI Awards of Excellence Competition |
Entries are now being accepted for IPI's 31st Annual Awards of Excellence Competition, recognizing outstanding achievement in parking facility design and architecture.
The complete Awards of Excellence entry forms are now available at www.parking.org/aoe.
Past winners have included notable parking garages in cities, retail complexes, corporate headquarters, airports, commercial buildings, public institutions, universities, and sports complexes, among others. The awards are open to public agencies, jurisdictions, institutions, organizations, or corporations that own parking facilities completed or renovated since January 1, 2010.
The top award honors architectural achievement. Other categories honor sustainable parking and transportation design excellence and noteworthy design and implementation of a surface parking lot. The competition offers seven categories:
I. Parking facility with fewer than 800 spaces
II. Parking facility with 800 or more spaces
III. Surface parking lot
IV. Innovation/sustainability in an existing parking operation or program
V. Parking facility rehabilitation or restoration
VI. New parking facility incorporating sustainability
VII. Award of architectural achievement
Entries may be submitted online no later than Monday, December 31, 2012. Entry fees, rules, regulations, and judging criteria are outlined in the official entry brochure at www.parking.org/aoe.
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Nominations Sought For 2013 Parking Professional Recognition Awards |
Nominations are being accepted for the IPI annual Professional Recognition Awards, honoring the parking and transportation industry's outstanding contributors in four categories.
The Parking Professional of the Year category has been renamed to honor the late James M. Hunnicutt, a founding father of IPI and parking and transportation industry pioneer, who was Parking Man of the Year in 1976.
The James M. Hunnicutt Parking Professional of the Year award recognizes management-level professionals who direct an entire parking/transportation operation, or manage multiple units within a department.
The four award categories are:
- Parking Staff Member of the Year (for front-line staff)
- Parking Supervisor of the Year (for those who supervise one or more employees within a parking/transportation department or unit)
- Parking Organization of the Year (for public or private parking organizations, departments, consultants, suppliers, commercial operators, etc.)
- James M. Hunnicutt Parking Professional of the Year (for those management-level professionals who direct an entire parking/transportation operation, or manage multiple units within a department)
Additional entry criteria and packets can be downloaded here.
Nominations will be reviewed by IPI's Professional Recognition Committee, made up of industry peers appointed by IPI's Board of Directors. Entries must be submitted by February 1, 2013. Awardees will be honored at the 2013 IPI Conference & Expo in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., May 19-22, and in the July 2013 issue of The Parking Professional.
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New RFPs Posted |
 These are the latest parking RFPs available at the IPI RFP Portal. Access to complete RFP details is a benefit of IPI membership.
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The Parking Professional: The Forest for the Trees | |
The December issue of The Parking Professional examines sustainability and parking including how Colombia's City Parking offsets its carbon footprint through an innovative forest adoption program:
Many industries -- perhaps most -- directly and indirectly emit greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and are in part responsible for climate change; the parking sector is not an exception. Just like all other businesses, Bogota, Colombia's City Parking consumes energy, fossil fuels, and water, and generates waste in its daily operations, consequently producing carbon dioxide (CO2) that experts say contributes to global warming. The one big difference between other companies and City Parking is that this successful 66-facility parking organization decided to face its environmental responsibility in a very concrete manner, by protecting 17 acres of native forest in Puerto Gaitan, Meta, Colombia.
IPI Members can read about this innovative parking/forest partnership and the rest of the December issue by accessing the online version of The Parking Professional.
To advertise in the award-winning The Parking Professional, contact Bonnie Watts at 540.371.7535. |
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Learn from Your Peers at the Parking Matters® Blog |
 Sign up to receive Parking Matters® Blog posts as they are published (about two to three times each week). Recent posts:
- Innovative Parking Garage Safety by Mark Wright
- Help Wanted: Corporate (Parking) Sustainability Officer by Casey Jones, CAPP
- Practicioner-Engaged Parking and Transportation Planning by L. Dennis Burns, CAPP
- Thanksgiving Tale-gate: "America's Parking Lot" Now Available at Home by Kim Fernandez
Join the conversation and sign up for free.
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IPI Membership Benefits 101 Webinar |
IPI will host a free webinar on Thursday, December 13 at 1:00 p.m. EST to provide current and prospective IPI members with an overview of the many available membership benefits. Participants will see a walk-through of how to access the online benefits on the IPI website and how to take advantage of other many IPI programs and services. Participants will also have time to ask questions.
Presenter:
T.J. Cantwell, membership director, IPI
Thursday, December 13 at 1:00 p.m. EST /10:00 p.m. PST (60 minutes)
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Industry Headlines From IPI's Social Media |
Did you know that IPI provides an easy way to follow the latest news and trends in the parking and transportation industries? Just join us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and the Parking Matters® Blog. Here are just a few examples of the stories you may have missed:
IPI Latin Parking Conference & Expo to be held in San Juan via Caribbean Business http://ow.ly/fGHLM. Register here http://ow.ly/fGHPJ
D.C. implementing parking rules to limit visitor spots, discourage driving http://ow.ly/fGOE6
Don't let shopping drive you nuts via @reviewjournal http://ow.ly/fGQdu
RT @XeroxTransport: 4 Reasons Retailers Don't Need Free Parking to Thrive - http://bit.ly/V8AQzh
4 Parking Security Essentials by @BuildingsMedia -IPI members Geary Robinson ,Bob Harkins, Chris Gray quoted http://ow.ly/fINs0
Parking spots become Hong Kong's latest investment craze, raising fears of bubble http://ow.ly/fMoel
City may cut parking spots in Downtown Brooklyn http://ow.ly/fMoV1
Valet Parking Arrives at Hobby Airport http://ow.ly/fObY7
P Street in Lincoln could include reverse parking http://ow.ly/fOcSG
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Submit Your News to IPI's Parking NewsLINK |
 Got news? IPI members have a new, cost-free way to share their news about parking, people, products, and services, thanks to IPI's Parking NewsLINK, a new section at parking.org.
Parking NewsLINK is links to unedited member news releases; they are viewable to all, but only IPI members may post news. To upload news, members need to submit the name of their organization, the date of the news release, and a link to the information via an online form available on the site. Read recent member news here.
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IPI Industry Survey on Disability Parking |
IPI is soliciting feedback from parking professionals through informal monthly surveys to better understanding trends in the industry and learn what others are experiencing in parking operations and management. The first survey explores an issue that faces every parking professional: disabled parking. Please take a few minutes to complete the short survey here. The results will be shared in a future IPInsider.
If you have a topic you would like to get feedback on please email the questions (5 to 10 preferred) to T.J. Cantwell.
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