Ultimate Guide: How to Successfully Manage Your Parking Operation with Technology
Posted: Aug, 30, 2023 10:40AM ET • 13 min read
Technology can (and should be) used to manage all aspects of life more efficiently and your parking program is no different. If you are a facility or property manager who is seeking a greater understanding of how you can leverage technology and deploy intelligent solutions to manage your parking facility successfully, you’ve come to the right place.
This guide will help you:
Fuel operational performance
Deploy intelligent solutions
Advance management practices
Satisfy consumer expectations
Why Property Managers are Relying on Technology Now More than Ever
Traditional parking management tends to rely on the performance of people. But as the world continues to evolve, so will our management strategies. Today, technology supplements the following:
Parking enforcement
Marketing services
Customer assistance
Reporting
Onsite parking attendants
Valet and shuttle services
Permit management
Managing with Technology: What does it mean?
The division no longer exists. More and more property managers are looking for one solution that merges parking technology and parking management into one. Managing with technology is a win-win for everyone— on both a business and consumer level.
So how do we accomplish this? Managing with technology boils down to four core elements—smart hardware and software, digital customer service, self-management tools, and creative digital marketing.
Smart Hardware and Software
Smart and connected devices, whether gated or non-gated solutions are the foundation of automation and the key to fostering a smart parking program. These solutions offer:
Real-time remote control
Report generation
Digital payment options
Accessible design
Smart, hands-free access options
Software and hardware integrations and last-mile connections
But remember, these technologies must be smart and connected to effectively communicate data, analytics, and reports for business intelligence.
Gated and Non-Gated Parking Solutions
Smart and connected solutions allow you to build smart and connected experiences for both you and your customers. Whether you invest in gated or non-gated parking solutions for your facility, these technologies will help fuel your vision of comprehensive automation and secure revenue.
License Plate Recognition
Devising a strategic parking operation plan starts with understanding where, when, and for how long customers park at your facility. Smart technologies like license plate recognition (LPR) that go the extra mile to create a seamless experience for both you and your customers do just that. There are multiple ways LPR can be used within your parking operation including smart access control, automatic enforcement and real-time business intelligence.
Smart Access Control
License plate recognition systems provide added security and access control. It can also be programmed to understand various lists such as blocklists, notification lists, and access lists with different parameters that will either admit, notify, or prevent a vehicle from entering your facility.
Automatic Enforcement
License plate recognition’s enforcement technology does all the heavy lifting. Patrol officers are no longer required to manually check each license plate against a database of authorized parkers for special permit rules or photograph each infraction for future reference if the violation notices are disputed or validations are administered.
Real-Time Business Intelligence
License plate recognition technology allows you to make strategic decisions with a good understanding of where, when and for how long customers are parking in your facility. This can include anything from the frequency of visits, peaks days and time, to prime locations and durations. It can also be integrated with a central business intelligence platform.
Smart Sensor Technology
Camera-based parking guidance systems create a seamless wayfinding loop that reduces congestion, increases efficiency, and enables visitors to find parking easily.
The Welcome Experience
Visitors are guided to available parking stalls thanks to bright LEDs on smart-sensors above parking spaces quickly signal customers to available spaces using familiar green-or-red colour coding.
The Management Experience
On a business level, parking guidance systems with camera technology can do more than just track occupancy levels including reduce congestion, increase efficiency and limit the amount of time your customers spend searching for parking.
Parking guidance systems have LPR cameras in every stall sensor
Camera’s record license plates parked in stall
Find your car function by submitting license plate into kiosk / mobile device
Improved traffic flow by 37%
Enables dynamic pricing models fueled by rich data and analytics
Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
No major industry will change more over the next two decades than transportation. That is why it is important to consider investing in smart technologies like EV charging stations to ensure your management strategy remains agile. When planning your EV charging portfolio, it is important to ask yourself…
How many EV chargers will you deploy amongst your properties?
What different types of drivers will be using my EV charging stations?
Will they be charged different rates?
Will my EV chargers enable back-end communication?
Remote Monitoring and Digital Customer Service
Being aware of what is occurring onsite while having the ability to assist customers and keep tabs on logistics is vital. Thanks to intelligent solutions such as remote site monitoring and digital customer service, you are guaranteed to have a 24/7 connection to your onsite operations and devices without being onsite physically.
Giving you an inside look into your operation, this smart solution allows you to manage your parking operation with utmost efficiency from anywhere, anytime. All you need is a customer intercom, network camera, and remote intercom to get started.
Self-Management Tools
Today, customers not only desire convenience, they expect it—and it is no different when it comes to parking. Because of this, self-serve options are becoming an increasingly common solution within parking facilities.
Parking Management Hub
Business intelligence tools are evolving at a rapid pace. These tools are connecting data into one location to remove data friction, and they’re helping organizations visualize their most important metrics to gain the greatest insights. Property managers and owners will continue to use this data to improve their parking operations and revenue generation while eliminating common inefficiencies.
Everything you need, all in one place:
Data visualization
Period-over-period comparisons
Real-time reporting
Artificial intelligence
Subscriber, reservation, and validation management
Live system monitoring
Remote control
Curbside management and monetization
Dynamic pricing models
Enter, Pay, and Reserve on Mobile
It’s time to build relationships that last. In today’s day and age, smartphones have become a personal necessity and an integral part of the customer journey. So why not allow your visitors to enter and exit, pay, reserve, or validate their parking on one mobile application? Before getting started, ask your parking provider:
What types of parking equipment can mobile solutions be integrated with?
Will it be supported on all mobile devices?
What payment methods does it accept?
Do visitors need to download a mobile app? For which use cases?
Can it be used for third party reservations such as valet services?
Can I integrate my existing loyalty program?
Parking Subscription Management
Offering parking permit subscriptions to your visitors, employees and tenants is an effective way to secure recurring revenue and develop a returning customer base:
Pay-as-you-go subscriptions for individual and corporate accounts
Prepaid subscriptions
Monthly parking subscriptions
Contractor and temporary guest permits
Carpooling permits
Flexible permits range from scan-and-go and tap-and-go options to vehicle transponders and Bluetooth Low Energy that can be used by frequent visitors such as staff or tenants or by visitors preregistered for parking validations or reservations.
Managing the permit types your customers are using with a business management platform makes it easy to track customer behaviours, make product recommendations, and issue validations accordingly.
Financial Flexibility
When looking for a solution that manages your entire billing and collections processes for you, it is important that it gives you the flexibility to determine your billing cycle and enable you to plan and regulate your monthly cash flow with ease.
Whether it’s for a long-term, short-term or temporary guest or contract permit, your permit software should have the necessary tools to support multiple billing and payment options.
Creative Digital Marketing
Everything starts online in today’s day and age, including the parking experience. As a property manager, your primary goal is to ensure your parking lot is visible to attract and retain customers—and this begins online. Tactics associated with search engine optimization (SEO) will help you develop a solid online presence where customers can easily access information about your parking lot.
But it doesn’t stop there. Utilizing various digital strategies is imperative to maintain your online presence. This includes:
Using digital signage for easy customer navigation
Launching loyalty programs to retain customer repertoire
Putting your location on online maps and in-car navigation systems
Deploying online advertisements on your parking devices as an additional source of revenue or brand awareness for your organization
Integrate Parking with Your Loyalty Program
There are loyalty programs, and then there is everything your brand does to create loyalty.
Integrating parking with your loyalty program is an effective way to secure recurring revenue and connect visitor experiences. All it takes is a simple hardware integration or upgrade to enable digital action and behaviour tracking.
Barcode, QR code scanner, geofencing
In the future Bluetooth Low Energy scanners (BLE)
But first, you must ask yourself the right questions:
Customer Identification
Who do I want to attract? Who am I attracting?
How does the customer value my service?
What do they want most?
Are my employees a customer?
Am I creating an experience that creates customers?
Customer Experience
How are my customers welcomed, both physically and digitally?
How does my digital experience transcend into the physical and vice versa?
Are my customers engaged?
How frequently do they visit me?
How much do they spend with me?
Set Yourself Up for Success
No matter your size or scope, it is important to ask yourself the right questions about technology to fuel creative thinking and revenue opportunities.
Do I have smart and connected parking devices onsite to fuel my vision of automation and business intelligence?
Do I have a real-time connection to my customers, devices and logistics onsite?
Do I have self-serve options that both my administration and customers can utilize to fulfill demands of the operation?
What sales and marketing strategies are in place to attract and retain customers?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adamo Donatucci
Business Development & Strategy Officer
In his role at Precise ParkLink as Business Development & Strategy Officer, Adamo shares our vision of urban mobility managed through innovative technology. Adamo’s experience ideally positions him to lead cutting-edge technology initiatives that will identify and build operating efficiencies, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and continue to fuel Precise ParkLink’s position as Canada’s parking and mobility industry leader.
Donatucci’s previous experience consists of a Bachelor of Financial Economics degree from Ryerson University, over two decades of project management practice, and 25 years of parking industry experience in the areas of urban mobility, strategic planning and people management.
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