What You Are Paying For

The four parts

1. Part 1 of 4, solid ruleThe ground the car stands onLand near a field is worth what land near a field is worth, and that is the floor under every quote anybody gives you. It is also the part nobody itemizes.
2. Part 2 of 4, dashed ruleThe roof over it, or the lack of oneA structure has to be built, lit, drained and maintained. Open ground has to be plowed. Both cost money and they cost it in different months.
3. Part 3 of 4, dotted ruleThe person who moves it or watches itSomebody parks it, somebody drives the van, somebody is there at two in the morning when a flight lands late. Labor is the part of a parking price that moves fastest.
4. Part 4 of 4, double ruleGetting between the space and the doorA vehicle, a driver, fuel and a schedule, running whether or not anybody is aboard. In this city the field is far enough out that this is never a rounding error.

All eight, in part order

1. Part 1 of 4, the ground the car stands onThe Part of the Ground Nobody MentionsThree standing charges land on the same rectangle every year and none of them appears on a quote. They are the reason a lot's price moves in years when nothing about the lot has changed.
2. Part 1 of 4, the ground the car stands onWhy the Ground Costs What It CostsEvery quote anybody gives you has this underneath it, and nobody itemizes it. It is the least interesting part of the price and the one that explains the most.
3. Part 2 of 4, the roof over it, or the lack of oneThe Months That Decide a Covered PriceOpen ground and covered ground cost about the same to run for most of the year. The difference is concentrated into about fourteen weeks, and it is concentrated on open ground.
4. Part 2 of 4, the roof over it, or the lack of oneWhat a Roof Actually BuysA structure has to be built, drained, lit and inspected, and none of that is optional. What it buys a driver is real and it is narrower than the word covered suggests.
5. Part 3 of 4, the person who moves it or watches itWhat an Attendant Is Actually ForLabor is the fastest moving part of a parking price and the part with the clearest effect on a driver's day. It is also the part most often described in words that promise more than the job includes.
6. Part 3 of 4, the person who moves it or watches itWhether Anybody Else Holds Your KeysThe largest single difference between two parking arrangements is whether somebody else can move the car while you are away. It is rarely the headline and it changes everything underneath it.
7. Part 4 of 4, getting between the space and the doorThe First Run and the LastA shuttle day has two edges. Almost everything that goes wrong with off airport parking happens at one of them, and both are askable about in a single telephone call.
8. Part 4 of 4, getting between the space and the doorThe Van Is the ProductA driver spends four minutes on the ground and twenty in the van. The ride is the part of this arrangement that is actually experienced, and it is the part quotes describe least.

Why parts and not lot types

Because a catalog of lot types answers a question nobody has.

A driver comparing two quotes does not want to know that one is a surface lot and one is a deck. They want to know why one number is bigger, and the answer is always some combination of four things: the ground, the roof, the person and the ride.

Arranged that way, two quotes that looked arbitrary become comparable in about a minute, which is the whole reason this site exists in this shape.

What the border style is doing

Each part carries a different rule above it: solid, dashed, dotted, double.

That is decoration and nothing else. Each row prints its part in words and as a number out of four, the parts are spelled out beside every rule, and no color anywhere on this site carries meaning. Somebody who perceives no rule at all, on a narrow screen or through a screen reader, has the whole of the information. Using this site goes into it further.

The four questions

Asked of every entry, in the same order, whichever part it belongs to:

1. What this part buys. The thing itself, in one line.
2. What makes it move. The variable, because that is what a driver can act on.
3. What to ask when you call. A specific question, in words that get a specific answer.
4. What cannot be promised about it. The counterweight, because a site about price that only listed what it could promise would be dishonest by omission.

No figure anywhere

Not on this page, not on any page. Pricing sets out why, and the short version is that a desk with no operator agreement has no tariff, so a printed number would be one somebody made up.