Employee parking software is rapidly growing sector right now. The pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in business. At the same an increase in flexible working has also made it harder than ever to manage employee parking manually.
Previously companies had a fairly strong idea of who would be in the office and when they’d be in. Now with large numbers of people working from home a few days a week, it is very hard to keep a track of who needs space and when.
This is where software can help. Using an employee parking software, companies can optimize all their parking management. Software is the management layer on top of the hardware — sensors, ANPR cameras, barriers, and screens — all covered in our guide to parking technology.
The beauty is that market leading products are also geared up to transition companies into the future of mobility. With features that help companies to reduce parking dependency in the medium to long-term.
So what do you need to consider when buying an employee parking software? Let’s have a look.
What’s the best employee parking software?
A look at the leading software comparison sites G2 & Capterra paint a clear picture of the market. The verdict is unanimous with Wayleadr.com being voted the #1 product on both sites.
“A simple and elegant way to automate the management of your car park”
Matthew Walter, CV Global
Wayleadr.com is popular with companies of all shapes and sizes. Existing customers include Fortune 500 employers such as Sanofi, CBRE & Alstom as well as SMEs across the globe.
Do I need an employee parking software?
Figuring out if you need an employee parking solution is quite simple. Simply ask yourself these four questions.
– Do my company have too much parking space?
– Does my company have too little parking space?
– Do employees complain about parking?
– Does your company spend a lot of time managing parking?
If the answer is yes, then in short your company would benefit from employee parking software. The great thing about buying a parking solution is that it is easy to demonstrate return on investment. Leading vendors can show their impact on the bottom line, the environment and employees.
What problems can an employee parking software solve?
The short answer here is that a good software can solve every parking problem you can imagine. Let’s have a look at some of the most common issues.
For a more in-depth insight on solving specific parking problems check out this guide.
Flexible Working
Flexible working has raised a massive amount of benefits but raises real questions for real estate, facilities and workplace experience professionals. Traditionally working patterns were quite predictable. Employers knew on average how many people would be in the office on any given day.
This allowed them to introduce policies and processes to control the use of office space and parking space. That is all now out the window. The office of the future might have 100 people in the office on day and 500 people in the office the next day.
Managing this level of variability manually is just too much. This is where a good software will slot in.
In the click of a button companies can track who will be in work, when and their parking needs. Parking spaces can then be automatically allocated depended on availability, seniority etc.
Increase Availability
For some companies working from home is simply not possible. This means that there is always a pressure on parking spaces. They don’t have enough space to cater for demand.
A good parking management software can remove a lot of pressures here. How?
According to the State of Employee Parking 2021, 70% of employers designate some or all of their parking spaces. This means that specific staff are assigned specific spaces.
This can be a good way to ensure that a companies most important staff are given certainty around parking. However, there is also a common pitfall.
These spaces actually lie empty around 30% of the time. Every employee is away from the office at some time. Maybe they are on holidays, meeting clients or ill. A lot of companies who report parking shortages actually have car parks with swathes of empty space at any time.
Parking management solutions can get a hold of this issue for employers. They can automatically track when designated spaces are not going to be used they can be reassigned to other staff.
Reduce Manual Management
For many companies managing parking is a vortex.
Trying to assign spaces, deal with rogue parkers, replace lost access cards. The list is literally endless.
The good news is all of that can now be fully automated. Market leading parking softwares which manage all aspects of employee parking management automatically.
It’s literally a case of getting set up and letting the software do the rest. Spaces can be assigned and violations can be managed without any manual input. While access can be digitized meaning staff can access car parks with their phone, only if they are meant to be parking there on a given day.
Space Reduction
For environmental or economic reasons a lot of companies want to reduce their parking lots. However, it’s hard to know where to start.
Some businesses make the mistake of going cold turkey and offloading their car parks in one fell swoop. This is a great way to cause ructions among your workforce.
A much more measured approach is to leverage software to figure out exactly how much parking you need. A good employee parking solution can track daily occupancy patterns. This gives businesses the insights they need to make structured and strategic decisions.
For example many companies feel they don’t have enough parking spaces. The reality is that demand only outstrips supply maybe once a month. On average the parking lot might only be running at 50% occupancy.
People just remember the day that the car park was full because it became a nightmare to deal with. Armed with insights like this a company can actually halve the size of their car park.
For once off surges and events they can ensure that a strong plan is in place and communicated. This is a great way to ensure that companies can start to reduce car dependency without causing internal strife.
How does office parking management work?
Office parking management is the process of allocating, monitoring, and optimizing a workplace’s parking — deciding who parks, when, and where, and using occupancy data to squeeze the most out of a limited resource. In practice it’s four jobs: set the allocation policy, run the day-to-day bookings, enforce the rules without starting a civil war, and report on what’s actually happening in the car park.
Here’s the uncomfortable maths most facilities teams already suspect: the average office car park runs 20–30% under-utilized while employees circle the lot complaining there’s nowhere to park. Both things are true at once — spaces sit empty because the allocation is broken, not because the capacity is. Meanwhile the team managing it loses 10+ hours a week to permit lists, email disputes, and the Tuesday scramble. Done properly, office parking management fixes both: Wayleadr customers typically see around 44% better utilization and cut parking admin by 80%.
Setting an office parking policy
The policy is where office parking management is won or lost. The usual suspects:
- First-come, first-served — simple to run, and on peak days it’s a lottery where the prize is getting to work on time.
- Fixed assignments — predictable, but every absence parks an empty space all day. In a hybrid office, that’s a lot of very well-rested tarmac.
- Rotation or credit systems — fairer for hybrid teams; run manually, they generate exactly the spreadsheet workload you were trying to escape.
- Policy-based dynamic allocation — rules by team, role, and day (guarantee spaces for essential on-site staff, release the rest to hybrid workers automatically), with software doing the allocating instead of a person doing the apologizing.
Most teams moving off spreadsheets land on the last one, because it’s the only model that keeps up with attendance that changes daily. If you’re formalizing this for the first time, write the rules down as a proper parking management plan before you buy anything — the policy drives the software requirements, not the other way round.
Office parking management systems vs employee parking software
Vendors use these terms interchangeably. They shouldn’t. Employee parking software is the app-and-policy layer this guide covers — bookings, allocation, notifications. An office parking management system usually means that layer plus the physical kit: barrier and gate integration, license-plate recognition, occupancy sensors, EV charger management. A 40-person office rarely needs the hardware layer. A multi-site enterprise with gated garages almost always does — that’s enterprise parking management software territory, and it’s worth knowing which one you’re shopping for before the demos start.
The day-to-day admin workflow
Once the policy is live, managing office parking stops being firefighting and starts being a ten-minute Monday check:
- Bookings run themselves. Employees reserve through a parking booking system in under 30 seconds; releases and waitlists happen automatically instead of via a facilities inbox.
- Exceptions follow the same rules. Visitors, contractors, one-off requests — handled in-app, not by whoever answers the phone first.
- Enforcement is systematic, not personal. A wrong-space issue triggers a polite in-app nudge rather than a note under the wiper — and repeat offenders show up in the data, so the conversation is short.
- Reporting closes the loop. Occupancy by day, team, and zone tells you whether the policy matches reality — and when leadership asks whether the overflow lease is still worth six figures a year, you answer with a chart instead of a shrug.
The same engine runs the rest of the arrival, too. Offices pairing parking with commute programs — shuttles from off-site lots, carpool matching, EV charger rotation — manage it all under one policy, so “how people get to work” is one system, not four spreadsheets.
What should I pay for an employee parking software?
The good news is that this is unlikely to be a million dollar question. Unless you are one of the world’s biggest employers.
A good employee parking software is likely to cost $5 – $10 per month per space managed, depending on the level of features a business requires.
On average a business can expect to demonstrate a direct return on investment in excess of 4:1 for parking management software spend. By empowering businesses to get more from less space, parking softwares can save businesses a lot of money and hardship.
Join industry leaders from companies like Sanofi, Indeed.com & CBRE, schedule a demo with Wayleadr.com today and solve your parking problems in the click of a button.
For a comparison of the software vendors in this space, see our guide to parking software companies.
For a more concise overview of what parking software does, see our parking software explainer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is employee parking software?
A platform that automates how companies manage employee parking — booking, allocation, access control, enforcement, and analytics. It replaces spreadsheets and manual admin with self-service tools for employees and a centralized dashboard for facilities teams.
What features should parking software have?
Mobile booking, policy-based allocation, real-time occupancy tracking, access control integration (LPR, badges, mobile credentials), no-show auto-release, visitor management, and analytics dashboards. Enterprise deployments also need SSO and SCIM support.
How do you evaluate parking management software?
Compare hardware integration depth (how many access control partners?), policy engine flexibility, mobile app quality, analytics capabilities, security certifications (SOC 2, GDPR), and customer references in your industry.
