Fair parking when there are not enough spaces

For many offices parking, not desks, is the scarcest resource. There are forty spaces and ninety people who would like one, and the unofficial system is whoever arrives first. It is unfair to parents on the school run, it creates a morning race, and it quietly encourages everyone to drive alone.

Make parking bookable, like a desk

The first step is visibility. When spaces are booked in advance on a plan of the car park, people know the night before whether they have a space, and can choose the train or a lift instead of circling the block. Booking parking in the same place as a desk also makes the office day one decision instead of two.

Give carpools a head start

The most effective lever is to reward shared cars. Reserve a set of spaces for carpools and hold them for shared cars until the evening before, then release whatever is left to everyone. Drivers who bring colleagues get a better chance of a space, and every carpool frees another space for someone else.

• Start with around 10 to 15% of spaces reserved for carpools, and adjust after a month.
• Release unused carpool spaces the evening before, so no space sits empty on principle.
• Let the driver add passengers directly, so everyone in the car can see the booking without a round of approvals.

Keep a small number of fixed exceptions

Accessibility needs, pregnancy or medical reasons, and roles that genuinely need a car every day should have assigned spaces. Keep this list short, transparent and reviewed, so the rest of the system is seen as fair.

Measure and communicate

Share the numbers with staff: how many spaces were booked, how many carpools ran, how often the car park was full. When people can see that the rules shorten the morning queue, they stop working around them.