Compark 2015 - How the Mobility Industry is Changing

Congratulations to the ANPSG (Australian National Parking Steering Group) on ComPark 2015. An Interesting and thought provoking speech was given by Parking Australia CEO, Lorraine Duffy, on the impact of future technologies. Some take-aways for me from the presentation were:

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• 60% of people will abandon an activity if parking is too difficult, and they will try somewhere else
• Parking guidance systems can reduce time of journey by 43%, and distance travelled by 30%
• Like the revolution in the accommodation industry with Wotif, a channel manager for parking could overlay all the separate systems we have for a better customer experience
• Mobile, infrastructure-less solutions are the way of the future
• Legislation has to keep up with technological changes
• We need to use the data we obtain from our various systems in a more strategic manner

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Lorraine also posed a question – how will the introduction of driverless vehicles impact your industry? I had a think about it. A driverless share vehicle for instance may only need to 'park' to refuel/charge up. Car parks could become more like service hubs for a city share fleet.

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Driverless vehicles are lauded as a better safety option – will it one day become illegal to actually drive a car as a less safe/ less skilled human? Will the attachment we have with owning a vehicle dissipate? And what new safety or security risks arise from computer controlled devices?

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Driverless vehicles will not speed, run red lights or park where they shouldn’t. What does this mean for infringement revenue? How do the externalities we benefit from with lower fatalities be calculated and distributed? Will we ever need a bus driver or a taxi driver again?

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A thought provoking speech indeed!

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