July 30, 2026
Cities have always collected some kind of parking data, but for decades that meant a clipboard, a handful of volunteers, and a snapshot of a few days over the course of a year. That kind of data can't answer the questions modern planning departments actually need answered: Which spaces turn over quickly and which sit full all day? Is parking really as scarce as business owners claim? Does a specific area need more , or less, parking or could that land be better used for something else?
Real-time, 24/7/365 parking data changes the conversation from anecdote to evidence. Here's some areas where it makes a big difference:
Zoning and land use – Occupancy data shows whether parking minimums are set too high, freeing up land for housing or mixed-use development instead of empty asphalt.
Traffic and congestion – Block-by-block occupancy trends help cities reduce the "circling for a spot" traffic that clogs downtown cores.
Curb management – Knowing when and where demand peaks let cities allocate curb space dynamically between parking, loading zones, and pickup/drop-off.
Development approvals – Utilization data near a proposed project tells planners whether a developer really needs to build more parking, or whether the area can support less.
Revenue and infrastructure planning – Usage patterns justify where to invest in repaving, new garages, or updated meters.
The catch is that all of this depends on data quality. Estimates, short-term studies, and unreliable sensors can send a city down the wrong path just as easily as no data at all. Spruce Grove, Alberta, is a good example of what happens when a city gets the data right, and what it can actually do with it once it does.
The City of Spruce Grove wanted to improve the parking experience downtown while balancing the needs of local businesses, builders, and developers. But previous parking studies hadn't produced the kind of reliable, ongoing utilization data the City needed to move forward with confidence. Without accurate numbers, any Parking Management plan would be built on guesswork rather than evidence.
To fix that, Spruce Grove turned to eXactpark™, a smart parking solution built on eleven-x's patented SPS-X™ sensor. The software behind the sensors was just as important as the hardware. eXactpark tracks individual usage counts, turnover, dwell time, and parking duration, the exact data points needed to build an accurate picture of how downtown parking is actually being used.
Once eXactpark™ was fully deployed, Spruce Grove had a live, granular dataset showing exactly how downtown parking was being used: turnover, dwell time, parking duration, and occupancy, zone by zone, 24/7/365. That data had a direct impact on the City:
It replaced guesswork with facts for local businesses. Instead of general reassurances, the City could show business owners exact figures on how many vehicles were parked in a specific area at a specific time, turning a recurring point of friction into a fact-based conversation.
It drove an actual bylaw change. The City's Planning & Development team used eXactpark's utilization data to bring a proposal to City Council: reducing minimum parking requirements from 1 spot per 85 square meters to 1 spot per 55 square meters. The data wasn't background material — it was the central evidence in the presentation and in Council's eventual decision.
It unlocked downstream economic benefits. With increased parking availability, developers can build larger buildings on the same footprint. That means more tax revenue for the City and room for businesses to grow and hire, without straining available parking.
It's opening the door to further innovation. Building on this foundation, the City has deployed sensors at EV charging stations to correlate charging behavior with parking duration, and it's exploring electronic wayfinding signage to guide drivers directly to open spots. The eXactpark deployment will also extend into a newly designed street as part of the City Centre Redevelopment Plan.
Spruce Grove's experience is a good illustration of a broader point: parking data is only as useful as it is accurate and continuous. A one-time count can tell you what happened on one day. Real-time data tells you what's actually happening all the time, and that's what let Spruce Grove move from an assumption about parking demand to an actual bylaw change, backed by numbers, that reshapes a downtown. That's the difference between having parking data and having parking data a city can plan around.