Toronto Parking Authority People Update

For context, the pandemic had a devastating impact on the Toronto Parking Authority. Customer trips and revenues were more than halved, profitability collapsed, 65 percent of unionized staff were laid off and 81 percent of non-union staff were downsized and/or departed since 2021. Concurrently, post 2017, the organization had not invested sufficiently in its infrastructure, systems, and people leaving the team ill-prepared to compete and win in the marketplace. To state the obvious, the team was disempowered and looked to leadership to address our shortcomings. In Q4 2021, the Board endorsed a new corporate strategy centred on five key operating imperatives: Build a Great Place to Work; Strengthen the Core, Execute with Excellence; Accelerate Growth; Connect with Customers; and Innovate with our City Stakeholders and Partners. In recognition that future success hinged on our people, our first step was to listen and learn from staff. Their insights were constructive, pragmatic, and compelling. They signalled our way forward…to create a culture whereby "disciplined people engage in disciplined thinking and undertake disciplined action within a framework of personal accountability and teamwork." This became our road map to "Build a Great Place to Work" and was the inspiration behind our new corporate vision to become the Best Parking, Bike Share and EV Charging Operator in the World. Bringing the aspirational "Build a Great Place to Work" imperative to fruition required unwavering focus in two critical areas: Talent Development and Cultural Transformation. From a talent perspective, the organization restructured in 2022 and onboarded new staff with proven track records of driving results with skills in key areas including engineering, IT, finance, operations, safety, business development and data analytics. Concurrently, and with the express purpose of creating a customer centric, high-performance culture, we designed and launched our new "Rules of the Road" which integrated our new corporate Mission and Vision with the values and behaviours that define Brand TPA. These "Rules of the Road" are now the rallying cry for the organization and the standards we aspire to every day. This transformation has been in flight since 2022. Despite industry headwinds, Team TPA has delivered outstanding financial results, grown revenues higher than pre-pandemic levels, transformed our digital payments capabilities, modernized much of our legacy parking assets, built Canada's largest municipally owned EV operation and successfully scaled one of North America's premiere Bike Share systems. These results would not have happened without the professional, highly engaged staff of Team TPA.