Parking in Tower Hamlets

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a dynamic, rapidly growing inner city borough, averaging about 6,500 new properties per year. This case study explores how the council implemented a Car Free project to reduce traffic stress.

The issue

Due to the high growth levels in resident numbers adding to already swelling resident numbers, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets was predominantly parking stressed. A solution was required which reduced the pressure on the borough’s roads.

Solution

The solution involved the enactment of a series of planning policies to facilitate the development of largely car free properties in parts of the borough with high parking stress. This was delivered, monitored and enforced via a new system which joined the council’s data intelligence together. The project leveraged the benefits of a previous project to relocate the street naming and numbering function from the Transportation and Highways Department to the Development and Renewal Department.

The project was undertakes in two stages:

1. The first stage involved business process reengineering. The objective was to create a framework of relevant data, including planning obligations, street naming and numbering information, and parking permit information, underpinned by the Local Land and Property Address Gazetteer. The project utilised the LLPG and Local Street Gazetteer, as well as Ordnance Survey MasterMap

2. The next stage involved rolling out the new system with the parking permits team, as well as the street naming and numbering officer and LLPG Custodian.

The system is linked to the CRM system and received change only update LLPG information in order to keep the data up to date.

Outcomes

The main outcomes and benefits of the project, including the benefit recipients include:

1. achieving the council’s strategic objectives by facilitating building of thousands of properties each year while reducing parking stress

2. securing social cohesion by reducing parking stress related discontent between residents

3. guaranteeing fairness by ensuring only eligible properties receive parking permits

4. reducing car use and encouraging more environmentally friendly modes of travel for new properties

5. improved data quality through improved processes

6. financial savings and time savings through process automation and resulting staff reallocation

7. reducing risk through improper parking.

Authority view

This project illustrates that adopting a value chain approach to enterprise data and information management and workflows can harness the required business intelligence needed to enable an organisation achieve its strategic objectives.