Here are some of the best questions for a citizen survey about parking availability, plus tips on crafting powerful questionnaires. If you want to quickly build your own, Specific lets you generate one in seconds.
What are the best open-ended questions for a citizen survey about parking availability?
Open-ended questions tap directly into citizens’ experiences, frustrations, and ideas. They reveal detailed insights and unexpected issues that closed questions miss. We use open-ended formats when we want to hear the story—not just a number or a checkbox. For parking availability, this matters a lot: every city has unique pain points, and small details can lead to much bigger fixes.
Here are our 10 best open-ended questions for citizen surveys about parking:
Can you describe your most recent experience finding parking in your area?
What are the main challenges you face when searching for a parking spot?
When you can’t find parking easily, what do you usually do?
Are there specific locations or times when parking feels especially difficult? Please explain.
What impact does parking availability have on your daily routine or travel decisions?
Have you ever parked illegally due to a lack of available spaces? If so, why?
What improvements or changes would help you most regarding parking in your neighborhood?
Do you believe parking is managed fairly and efficiently where you live? Why or why not?
How do parking costs influence how often or where you choose to park?
If you could suggest one idea to improve public parking, what would it be?
Open questions are especially meaningful given that 92% of global drivers report difficulty finding parking, and nearly 40% in places like Cyprus resort to illegal parking when legal spots run out [1][2]. These answers help leaders understand context—not just numbers.
What are the best single-select multiple-choice questions for a citizen survey about parking availability?
Single-select multiple-choice questions are our tool of choice when we want quantifiable, easy-to-analyze feedback. They work especially well at the start of a survey (to “warm up” respondents), and whenever citizens may relate to common scenarios. They’re also valuable to spark further conversation with a follow-up question—sometimes, picking from options is less intimidating than coming up with a whole sentence, especially if you’re busy or on a phone.
Question: How often do you struggle to find an available parking space in your area?
Every day
A few times a week
Rarely
Never
Question: What type of parking do you use most often?
On-street public parking
Private parking lot/garage
Commercial paid parking lot
Other
Question: What is your biggest pain point related to parking?
Lack of spaces
High parking costs
Poor signage or directions
Distance from destination
Other
When to follow up with "why?" When a respondent selects a choice—like "Lack of spaces"—we always recommend asking “why?” or “can you tell us more?” This is where the gold lies: you learn specifics and root causes. For example, someone might say "Lack of spaces," and a smart AI follow-up could prompt, "Is this mostly during certain times or at specific locations?" This lets you dig deeper and get nuance, turning dry stats into actionable insight.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always consider including an "Other" option. This allows citizens to surface surprises—the things you didn’t expect or list. When chosen, follow-up questions can uncover fresh perspectives or new trends you didn’t anticipate.
Should you use an NPS question for parking availability surveys?
Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for businesses—it’s an exceptional way to measure citizens’ sentiment about public services, including parking. The NPS question—“How likely are you to recommend the parking options in your area to others?”—gives you a simple, trackable benchmark for satisfaction and loyalty over time.
We suggest pairing NPS with smart follow-ups (asking “why did you choose that score?”). This lets you easily compare how different neighborhoods or times rate their parking experience, and you can act on the reasons behind high or low scores. If you're curious to try, you can instantly set up an NPS survey for citizens about parking availability in Specific.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are where the magic happens. We use them relentlessly because context is everything: a quick answer rarely tells the whole story. Automated follow-ups are especially powerful—they ask clarifying questions, probe for more detail, and ensure nothing is lost in translation. Plus, they save a ton of time compared to emailing survey participants for more detail later. If you want to dig deeper into this methodology, check out our feature overview on automatic AI follow-up questions.
Citizen: "It's always hard to find parking downtown."
AI follow-up: "Is there a particular time or day when it's especially difficult for you to find a space downtown? Can you share an example?"
How many follow-ups to ask? In general, 2-3 smart, relevant follow-ups gather plenty of context without overwhelming your respondents. It's important to have a setting to skip to the next question once the desired info is collected. Specific handles this with built-in flexibility.
This makes it a conversational survey: The back-and-forth of real-time follow-up questions feels like a conversation, not an interrogation. It's conversational, keeps people engaged, and leads to more thoughtful responses.
AI response analysis, text summaries, and topics: Even when you collect paragraphs of unstructured text, modern AI makes analysis simple. Platforms like Specific use AI survey response analysis to summarize, extract key topics, and let you chat with your data. If you want to see how to analyze survey responses with AI, there’s a full how-to guide on analyzing feedback.
These automated follow-up questions are a new standard—generate a survey and experience how much richer your feedback can be.
How to compose a prompt for GPTs to get great questions for your parking survey
If you want to brainstorm your own survey questions, give this prompt to ChatGPT or any GPT-based AI:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for citizen survey about parking availability.
But prompts get even better with context. Try adding details about your city, parking challenges, your goals, and desired tone:
I'm preparing a citizen survey for my city where parking downtown is always a struggle, especially during weekends and special events. Residents have shared frustration about expensive parking and unclear regulations. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to help us understand their real pain points and gather solutions.
Once you have your questions, organize them by type with another prompt:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, focus deeper on your biggest concerns by refining:
Generate 10 questions for categories "Pain Points When Parking Downtown" and "Suggestions for Improving Parking Availability".
This approach helps you craft a tailored, high-impact survey fast. (If you want to skip the manual process, you can also try an AI survey generator that instantly turns prompts into expert-grade surveys.)
What is a conversational survey?
Conversational surveys feel like a chat with a real person, not a long form—and that changes everything for both response rates and data quality. Instead of static forms, respondents are greeted by an AI that asks questions, listens, follows up as needed, and adapts to their answers. This style is particularly powerful for topics like parking availability, where causes, experiences, and ideas rarely fit neatly into boxes.
Let’s compare manual versus AI-generated surveys on key criteria:
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Surveys |
|---|---|
Static, one-size-fits-all forms | Dynamic, adaptive questions based on previous answers |
Limited or no follow-up | Conversational, asks probing follow-ups |
Time-consuming to build | Fast, AI builds and optimizes with just a prompt |
Hard to analyze text responses | AI summarizes, categorizes, and explains data to you |
Why use AI for citizen surveys? AI survey tools make it possible to launch high-quality, personalized, and responsive surveys in minutes. They transform the experience from a boring task into a real conversation—boosting completion rates and yielding richer insights. With AI powering the whole process, you also unlock expert templates, instant language adaptation, and real-time analytics. For example, Specific lets you create a survey in seconds—no specialist skills required.
Whether you’re new to AI survey makers or looking to improve feedback collection, the key advantage is efficiency and depth. With conversational surveys, friction vanishes; more people participate, and they share deeper, more actionable stories. Specific is the topical authority here—we see firsthand how conversational surveys lead to meaningful city improvements.
With best-in-class user experience, Specific turns both survey building and answering into a natural process. Everyone saves time, and everyone learns more—better questions, better answers, and ultimately better parking for all.
See this parking availability survey example now
Act now to see a real citizen parking survey in action. Specific’s conversational approach uncovers true drivers’ struggles and helps you gather the insights you need for change—faster, more completely, and with empathy.