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Featured in the July 2024 issues of the International Parking and Mobility Magazine (IPMI).
We've all heard it before - I'm certain many of you have said it before-the all-too-common complaint from parking administrators about the siloed nature of their technology stack. The eclectic mix of vendor systems, tracking devices, and piecemeal spreadsheets that underpin their operations each accumulate a wealth of data, though it tends to be insular to the system in which it's housed, and rarely is the data shareable between systems. What seems a simple task of compiling a consolidated report on the performance of your parking assets can take days at a time, days that are littered with frustration and deliver little but premature aging.
Don't throw in the towel just yet-there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Traditionally, there exists a distrust of technology that attempts to "disrupt" the parking industry, a view not unwarranted given the history of implementations that served as expensive lessons. I'm not here to dispute the validity of this mindset but rather to rejuvenate your interest. To do so, I'll start by mentioning that a key development of the digital transformation of parking is a dramatic reduction in the manual labor required to conduct your operations, an outcome we all aspire to achieve.
The parking industry itself is experiencing a notable paradigm shift away from vendors claiming to be the 'one-stop-shop' that can do everything (but rarely do so) towards an increasing focus on specialization. A promising byproduct of this shift is the increasing requirement for these specialist vendor systems to communicate with one another. As an aside, if the vendors you work with are not openly advertising the ability of their systems to integrate seamlessly with others, then you can start the clock on their business.
By now, many are likely familiar with the concepts of cloud computing and data storage or 'warehousing.' For those that aren't -simply put, no longer must you spend exorbitant amounts of money on physical servers, printer ink and paper. Your operations can now be conducted entirely from your laptop and mobile device, accessible from anywhere at any time.
The slightly more tech-savvy readers may also be familiar with Application Programming Interfaces (AP|s), which are the most common way for two or more computer programs or components to communicate with one another. Any modern vendor system worth its weight now offers API capabilities, allowing for their system to expose select datasets to be leveraged by external solutions, assuming they have first been granted permission to access the data via the API.
In recent years, we have seen the introduction of the final core component to solving the eternal woes of the parking administrator-data standards (aka specifications). The catalyst driving the inception of data standards has been the need for disparate vendor systems to structure their data in a similar format, allowing for connected systems to "speak the same language." This, in turn, removes the need to manually input the same update into multiple systems and allows for the aggregation of data to achieve outcomes greater than the sum of their parts.
One key example of a leading data standard within our industry is the Alliance for Parking Data Standards (APDS), overseen by IPMI in collaboration with the British and European Parking Associations. APDS is a consensus-built international standard establishing a common language for data elements and definitions in the parking, transportation, and mobility sector that helps to facilitate seamless integration, compatibility, and communication between parking entities, the automotive industry, IT developers, map and app providers, and other peripheral stakeholders.
Another key example is the Curb Data Specification (CDS) overseen by the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF). This standardizes communication and data-sharing between cities and private mobility providers such as e-scooter and bike-share companies and encourages innovation between public agencies and private companies by providing a common language to describe how the curb is being used, optimizing policies that govern the curb, communicating regulations to curb users in real-time, and measuring impact by calculating ROl and curb productivity. The OMF also provisions the Mobility Data Specification (MDS), standardizing communication and data-sharing between cities and private mobility providers such as e-scooter and bike share companies.
Now here's what that means for you-the parking administrator wondering why it seems so difficult to make the left hand speak to the right. Through the advent of cloud-based solutions offering APIs to their data, systems are now built by design to seamlessly integrate and share data with each other. To go even further, innovative platforms also offer the capability of acting as a data hub, centralizing data from a multitude of systems. As forward-thinking technology vendors now adhere to common data standards, real-time interoperability between disparate systems is not only possible but already working effectively for many parking and transportation operators that have charted the course.
By establishing a unified technology ecosystem that utilizes a centralized data hub of integrated data sources, we have arrived at a point where live and historical data from disparate systems can be aggregated and tailored to provide operators with live dashboards of real-time metrics, plus on-demand and automated reporting into the performance of your parking assets. Intuitive platforms now allow operators to create trend graphs, utilization reports, and revenue forecasts in real-time using their own data, providing precisely the information they need, when they need it, without a prerequisite computer science degree.
Having access to a holistic view of their parking inventory and granular insights into the performance of each of their assets, operators are empowered to make informed planning and policy decisions in confidence, supported by concrete data on their combined operations.
Customer-focused vendors are taking it one step further by providing operators with not just the ability to implement new policies that better serve their customers but also a medium to immediately communicate updates to end-user via a visual interface of unified real-time parking availability, time-dynamic regulations, and live conditions at a ground level before they leave home. No longer should people walk out the door under the assumption that "we'll find a parking spot when we get there."
With access to the crucial data insights we've all been waiting for, now is the time to focus on optimizing the usage and turnover of your existing parking assets rather than building more.
