Smart Parking is more than a buzz word today, it’s the future of the large-scale parking sector. With the proliferation of AI and data analytics in many areas of businesses, customers are demanding more integrated solutions that make travel and transportation by land, air and sea more efficient. Waze’s partnership with Inrix a few years ago, which connects traffic congestion with available surrounding public parking, was just the beginning of a new Smart Parking trend that enables better transportation decisions. Smart Parking is impacting large-scale parking operations, especially in urban areas.
What is Smart Parking?
Smart Parking is a parking strategy that brings together human innovation and technology to create solutions that reduce time, resources used and space. By using sensing devices on cameras, lights or gates, Smart Parking helps operators and drivers understand occupancy or available space in real time. Numerous cities and universities are adopting smart parking to improve traffic congestion, better manage assets and enhance safety.
Smart Parking Benefits
Roughly 30% of traffic congestion is caused by drivers hunting for a parking spot, and about 1 million barrels of oil are burned each day worldwide on parking spot hunting. (SOURCE.) Smarting parking technology is changing this, which is significantly improving the quality of life for urban cities and individuals looking for available space. But the benefits of Smart Parking go beyond improving the life of a customer. There are business benefits as well.
Smart Parking technology leverages data sensors to determine when and where available parking exists, this coupled with a mobile parking reservation system significantly drives revenue for airport, cruise port and university parking businesses. Also, cloud-enabled parking operations are paving the way for parking businesses to operated lights, gates and other services from anywhere, at any time. With this ability, parking business can improve the safety and usability of their parking lots, saving resources which cut costs, and ensuring customers are in a safe environment whenever they use the lots.
Understanding when and where available parking exists will also improve yield management, helping operator determine prices based on availability and location.
In sum, there are a myriad of ways Smart Parking technology can improve services for large-scale parking operations. The question is not “if” but “when” and “how” large scale parking operations will be impacted by AI and Smart Parking, especially in urban areas. Large-scale operations that ignore this trend will undoubtedly be left behind.
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