News & Insights

What does a smart city look like? What will the future of parking be? We asked questions like these to parking influencer Paul Arevalo, the City Manager for West Hollywood, and Oscar Delgado, the Director of Public Works for West Hollywood, as part of our Parking Influencer Interview Series filmed during the 2017 International Parking Institute Trade Show and Conference in New Orleans. Watch the next interview in the series. Music credit: Nazar Rybak, “Corporate Inspired,” http://www.hooksounds.com

There are many goals when it comes to finding the right smart parking management solution. Last, but certainly not least, among them should be improving the quality of life for citizens and visitors by making parking compliance simple and effective. When people don’t have to guess about local restrictions and permits, and when paying the proper fees is convenient and hassle-free, drivers can focus on their own business without worry or concern. The less someone needs to bother with anything other than the task at-hand, the more relaxed and attentive they become, and the more they enjoy their time in a municipality. Public relations might sound like a minor concern of parking enforcement, but it can mean everything to a local municipality, and make a real difference in the way people think about it. You’d never want to make it more difficult for someone to work in or visit your town, right? Take a customer-centric approach to smart parking management, and you’ll find you can improve the situation for everybody involved. Make customers feel good about parking management Smart parking management isn’t something that your average citizen spends a great deal of time thinking about. Unfortunately, when they are thinking about it, odds are they’re usually not happy. Whether because of a ticket they don’t think they deserved, an unexpected need to circle the block in search of a space, or because they’re having trouble reading signage, drivers seem to only notice parking management when it makes their lives more difficult. This is backwards, though, as proper parking enforcement and management actually makes people’s lives easier, and improves the general experience of being in a town or city immensely. With more spaces opened up more regularly, more people can visit or work in an area. With routine and effective enforcement procedures, people know the rules and enforcement officials can focus more on helping folks stay in compliance, rather than writing tickets all day. All of which is to say that effective parking enforcement is a win-win for everybody, not the least of which the municipalities that can use the revenues raised from more targeted enforcement on civic investment and infrastructure improvement. Pay by plate parking and customer education More than anything else, public relations here boils down to public education. Take the situation with pay by plate parking management. Pay by plate parking streamlines the process of paying for parking, simultaneously keeping more spots open while lessening the incidence of incorrect tickets. The elimination of coin meters for example, makes compliance easier to accommodate and enforcement more efficient, and in some circumstances customers are able to utilize one payment for multiple spots in different locations over a set period of time. Numerous cities have used pay by plate parking and similar modern parking enforcement solutions to improve the parking management situation in ways that benefit citizens and authorities equally. In other words, there’s no downside to switching to pay by plate parking, but the public may not know this! This type of customer outreach doesn’t have to be anything super-intense, either. In Galveston, TX, along with their transition to a new smart parking management solution, authorities changed the name of enforcement officials to “ambassadors” and offered violators a 30-minute grace period. By making officers feel less like cops and giving customers a hand in staying in compliance, Galveston made the enforcement process more customer-friendly, with stress on the convenience and fairness of the new system and technology. And that convenience leads to compliance, not to mention greater revenues. This will make sense to most people. Therefore, messaging should focus on educating the masses on how much better things can be, and implementing new procedures with a healthy dose of humanity. A little forethought and an outreach strategy that lets people know what the improvements will mean to them can go a long, long way to making the switch not just something people are prepared for, but something they might be excited about, too. Focus on the good aspects of smart parking management When people can pay for parking on their smartphones, using plate enabled pay stations or purchase permits online using their license plate number, much of the hassle that comes with parking in a city goes out the window. There may be no getting around the fact that parking enforcement ultimately deals with people paying money to park their car, but the revenue aspect cannot, and should not, be a parker authority’s sole focus. Instead, all the ways that changing local parking enforcement will improve the lives of citizens and visitors should take center stage in discussions about making the switch to something like pay by plate parking. Focusing on the following aspects that make customers’ lives easier can be immensely helpful: Convenience and Speed of Payment Effectiveness of New Enforcement Procedures and Effects on Traffic Flow Portability of Time Purchased Among Different Spots On-Demand Electronic Receipts Preferred Rate Parking Distinctions Mobile Payment Options Elimination of Human Error It’s not complicated, but it is important: keep the focus on the good that modern parking enforcement solutions do for citizens and visitors, and those customers will be more amenable to, and accepting of, integrating the new solutions into their daily lives. Consult our white paper on “Pay By Plate vs Pay By Space and Pay & Display” for further ideas on how messaging matters when talking about different parking enforcement solutions. hbspt.cta.load(154767, '0101f118-7cf4-408c-9883-7c2e764ddf20', {});

From the new basketball arena downtown to the boom in commercial real estate development, it’s clear Milwaukee has big plans for the future. But in order to continue to see success and watch their community thrive, some changes needed to be made.  In order to stay relevant and bring in world-class talent to live and work downtown, City of Milwaukee Parking Services knew they needed to be leaders, moving quickly to facilitate this transformation. The possibility of missing out on an opportunity to lead the city’s evolution is a strong catalyst for change for any government; and, as has been the case for other parking agencies, inaction risks involvement of external players which can be a detriment. Milwaukee opted to become one of those leaders by evaluating ways to leverage new technology to meet the City’s parking and transportation goals and objectives. Because of the hard work they put in and the updates they implemented, the parking department is now better able to serve their community. Click here to find out more about how gtechna technology helped them more efficiently utilize downtown parking, provide better customer service, and prepare for the future.

Metrolinx has created an award-winning transportation system that leverages technology and integrates it across multiple platforms, and it’s all centered around a positive customer experience. Since purchasing GoTransit in 2006, Metrolinx has invested significantly in the expansion of its transit system and serves the Metro and Greater Toronto area by providing transportation services to more than 7 million residents across 11,000 square kilometers. But with this increase in ridership came a need to update their technology. To help with this, Metrolinx turned to gtechna. The Metrolinx team knew that as they expanded, the outdated technology they were using to communicate, to issue tickets, and to complete paperwork just wasn't going to work anymore; they were bulky and took too much time. Metrolinx is focused on creating a positive customer experience, now and in the future. They have a unique situation because not only are they issuing tickets to parkers and riders, they’re issuing tickets to their patrons. They want to ensure that they can take care of their patrons in the most efficient, respectable way possible. By partnering with gtechna, they’ve shown that they’re future-focused and willing to do the work to make their system transparent and user-friendly. gtechna has been happy to not only help deliver the right technology, but to do their part in showing that choosing a customer-friendly solution creates a win-win scenario by benefiting the user, the organization, and the city. By taking an honest look at their situation and doing the hard work to update their systems, Metrolinx can grow into the future with the confidence that the technology they've chosen and their partnership with gtechna will give them the tools they need to succeed. To read Metrolinx's full story, click here.