EnSight Technologies: Parking Infrastructure Improvements Address Demand at Norfolk Int’l

In response to significant traffic growth, Norfolk International Airport (ORF) has undertaken a major initiative to enhance customer parking and improve its efficiency.

With just short of 5 million annual passengers projected by the end of 2024, the Virginia airport is addressing its current parking capacity while laying the groundwork for future expansion. Strategic upgrades totaling $72 million include a new 3,200-space parking garage, resurfacing of the East Lot, a garage space availability measurement system and a new Park and Wait Lot. These projects are part of a $1 billion capital improvement program to transform the airport over the next five to six years.

In 2022, the airport surpassed the 4 million passenger mark for the first time and then served more than 4.5 million passengers in 2023. Through November 2024, ORF was on track to exceed 4.9 million passengers—an increase of nearly 25% in just three years. “We expect that growth to continue, and with that, we’ve had a huge demand in parking,” says ORF President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Perryman.

Although the airport is in an urban setting, it has a distinct lack of public transportation. With no rail, light rail or bus service, many travelers arrive in private vehicles—thus, the need for more parking as airside traffic continues to grow.

To complete Garage D, ORF selected Gresham Smith for architectural design and Hourigan for construction; Baker Concrete Construction was instrumental in the cast-in-place concrete project. EnSight Technologies and FAAC Parking Solutions (HUB Parking Technology) were brought in to implement an advanced AI-based parking guidance and occupancy management system throughout the airport’s four parking garages (A, B, C and D) and the East surface lot. ORF partnered with Excel Paving Corp. for the resurfacing of the East Lot and Compo Construction for the Park & Wait Lot.

Designing the New Structure

The airport’s newly constructed Garage D opened in late 2022 with 3,200 parking spaces spread across nine levels. Spanning more than 1.1 million square feet, it is the largest parking facility at ORF and significantly boosted total parking capacity to approximately 10,000 spaces. The garage cost $68 million.

During peak seasons, like spring break 2024, available parking was less than 10%, even with the newly added capacity. Thankfully, the design of Garage D and other enabling projects at ORF have positioned the airport to add further parking infrastructure.

Counting System

One significant technological upgrade is the system that counts available spaces in the parking garages. The airport’s previous system used in-ground loop sensors, which were inaccurate and frustrated customers. The new $1.2 million vision-based machine learning system, installed in October 2024, provides real-time information about space availability by garage and level across all of ORF’s parking garages. The system uses advanced technology developed by EnSight Technologies that includes more than 100 cameras to track the occupancy of each parking space in real time. “We’re excited about that, and it just really helps prevent your patrons from swimming like sharks—circulating through,” Sutherland remarks.

The system’s cameras use vision-based machine learning to detect and count vehicles, providing precise, real-time data to digital signs in the garages to help travelers find a parking space. Machine learning improves efficiency by using information captured over time.

“We have the ability to make it smarter over time and retrain and then validate when we make updates or upgrades of the system,”
Chris Scheppmann, Chief Executive Officer of EnSight Technologies.

The system also integrates with AeroParker, ORF’s parking reservation platform since December 2021. “Reservations are sent instantly to the HUB system and customers are identified by a QR code at the entrance and exit,” explains Alan Daring, vice president of business development with AeroParker. Daring reports that annual reservations at ORF have grown by 260% since the launch of AeroParker, accounting for 9% of parking revenue, and continue to grow.

Scheppmann notes that this synergy benefits customers who pre-book their parking. “When they get there [to the airport], they can understand the best and fastest area of the garages or the surface lot to find available parking so they can make their flight and start their journey off seamlessly,” he explains.

ORF plans to display real-time information about parking availability on the airport’s website in early 2025, adding further efficiency for all parkers. This will allow travelers to check for space in every lot and garage.

Loyalty Rewards

The airport’s Parking Perks program awards 1 point per $1 spent, redeemable for rewards like parking discounts ($5 off after spending $100), swag bags, sports tickets and more. With 24,000 users and 64,000 bookings since launching in July 2022, the Parking Perks program has been deemed a success.

The ability to flex pricing and offer discounts for early bookings or off-peak periods allows passengers to secure great deals while the airport optimizes asset utilization, Daring says. “Ultimately, the stress-free experience of a reservation system fosters passenger satisfaction and reinforces a positive perception of the airport.”

Congestion Relief

ORF’s new $2 million Park and Wait Lot, which fully opened on Dec. 19, 2024, aims to ease curbside congestion during peak arrival times. Previously, the cellphone lot was farther from the terminal, so drivers would often loop around the airport waiting for arriving passengers instead of using the cellphone lot. Strategically located just a few hundred feet from Baggage Claim, the new Park and Wait Lot offers drivers a more convenient option.

Situated along the main path drivers take to pick up passengers, the new lot includes 80 spaces and was designed with intuitive entrance and exit points. “It’s in the natural flow of where you go to pick up your arriving passenger,” says ORF executive Perryman.

Pavement Work

A $650,000 project to resurface the long-term East Lot, completed in October 2024, improved one of the airport’s oldest and most frequently used surface lots. Responding to years of complaints about its condition, ORF improved the 900-space lot by milling, resurfacing half of the pavement and restriping to improve safety.

The half that remains unimproved will be used for contractor parking. “As our footprint grows, we have less availability for that,” Sumner comments. “So, we’ve been looking for alternatives of how we can set ourselves up for success in future projects.”

Challenges and Opportunities

The various parking improvement projects required careful planning to meet growing customer needs while minimising disruptions. Airport management fast-tracked the Park and Wait Lot with simultaneous design and construction to meet various deadlines, including the need to accommodate the long-eared bat migration. Despite labour shortages and contractor scheduling challenges, the project team managed to finish in time for the busy holiday travel period.

Construction of the new Garage D was difficult because of its location and constrained nature of the project site.

Naturally, safety was a focus for the contractor, Hourigan. Bart Dexter, vice president of the company’s Hampton Roads Business Unit, notes that the constant movement of people and vehicles required special vigilance. “We needed to make sure from that challenge, that we had our logistics squared away, that the site was safe,” says Dexter. Using two tower cranes required constant attention to proper barricades, signage and egress to ensure safety for workers and the public.

EnSight Technologies helped minimize costs by reusing existing digital signage. To do so, it gathered network and configuration details and integrated cameras to ensure accurate content. The project team needed to balance installation of the new system with ongoing operation of the existing one to avoid disruptions for patrons. Full configuration, testing and transition is going live in January 2025. The two systems run side-by-side while technicians validate the new system and EnSight plans the cutover process.

While Garage D was being built, a fourth entrance lane was added to the main garage entrance to increase flexibility during construction. While this change had some impact on the project, Sutherland says proactive signage and staff deployment ensured smooth traffic flow and guidance for patrons.

A Learning Experience

Sumner reports that with upcoming large-scale improvements, the airport is moving away from traditional low-bid design-build projects and instead following a construction manager-at-risk approach. This will allow for earlier involvement of construction teams, enabling better planning around phasing, scheduling and costs, she explains. “That’s been helping us think and feel more comfortable with these larger projects and our expectations of how they’ll align especially with the constant schedule.”

Scheppmann, from EnSight Technologies, focuses on matching technology systems to an airport’s particular needs. In ORF’s case, intelligent cameras were placed at key entry and interchange points to provide real-time level count data without requiring much infrastructure. If ORF had chosen a single-space parking guidance system, sensors or cameras for each parking space or every few spaces would have been required—with added infrastructure cost.

“It’s right sizing the technology, understanding how much information you want to get and give to parkers, and then understanding from a budgetary perspective, what is the right solution?”
Scheppmann says.

According to Daring, from AeroParker, travelers expect services such as online reservation systems and will park off-site if they can’t get them at the airport. “You can always begin with a pilot program for one parking lot or area to test and optimize before a full rollout,” he comments.

On Deck

Several other projects are in the queue for ORF’s $1 billion capital improvement program. A consolidated rental car facility is expected to be a game-changer for both airport operations and the passenger experience.

The new consolidated rental car facility, expected to break ground in 2025, will provide up to 40% more capacity. In addition to centralising all rental car agencies, it will free up 600 valuable spaces in Garage A and eliminate the need for shuttling rental vehicles to and from off-site cleaning and maintenance facilities. “[That] will give us more capacity for parking patrons, and it also solves some other bigger issues that we have in terms of ready return and getting cars turned around quickly for our rental passengers,” Perryman says.

About EnSight Technologies

Providing smart, simple, and scalable parking guidance and occupancy counting. With intelligent cameras, EnSight Technologies has designed a flexible and economical parking guidance Ecosystem that works for every parking provider. We believe less is more, providing parkers with enough information to make intelligent parking decisions and operators the metrics they need to efficiently and effectively manage their operations.