I’m sure you’ve experienced just as much frustration as I have every time you go to the airport and drive around endlessly trying to find a parking place.  Or, how about when you’re driving around endlessly in major downtown areas like New York or San Francisco trying to find a place to park?  Wouldn’t it be great if you could use your phone to see and be routed to the closest available parking place?

Well, I’m here to tell you that mobile and wireless technology is going to help solve the very big ‘pain point’ of parking.

The first (and more basic) solution uses text messaging to pay for your parking.  You enter a parking lot that has all the places marked with an ID number.  You then text ‘1 hr’ to the lot’s short code and their system charges the parking fee on your cell phone bill and allocates that space to you for the time you’ve purchased.  If you need to extend your stay, you just text more time to the same short code.

ParkMobile takes it one step further: they have built a mobile application that manages parking.

I believe that the best solution long term is going to come from installing sensors in each parking slot that can send a signal to a central server declaring whether the parking space is taken or available.  Here is an article that includes an ABC TV news segment [link] about Streetline, a company that is implementing sensors in downtown municipalities.  They have also developed SmartPhone apps to guide you to the closest and best available parking space.  Head downtown, open your Parker app and, just like magic, a map of the available parking places is shown to you on the phone’s display. I’m sure they will extend this to airports at some point.

Municipalities see this as a way to reduce the amount of “circling” that occurs when motorists are driving around to find an empty space.  This will ultimately save fuel and reduce carbon emissions.  Thus, mobile parking initiatives become ‘green’ initiatives.

Mobile will also help organizations in which reserved parking is a really ‘big deal’ – corporate executives, hospitals (doctors and nurses), universities (professors and staff) and movie studios (stars and moguls).  In all of these, the reserved parking slot is the ultimate perk, e.g. “As part of your employment as the new CEO, we’ll give you a dedicated ‘close in’ parking place.”

Now, using mobile technology, these organizations don’t have to waste parking slots that are empty all the time.  Instead, they can pool the reserved parking places and allocate them ‘on-demand’ as needed.  Someday, the movie star will indicate “On the way to the studio” in his or her phone and a special parking place will suddenly light up with the personalized parking nameplate -- e.g. “George Clooney” -- and he (or his driver) will be directed to the assigned parking place.

With sensors, systems, and SmartPhones, companies will have the ability to offer parking services dynamically, e.g. providing a temporary ‘preferred parking space’ to a pregnant employee or to a maintenance group or visiting dignitary.  The same can be done at stadiums to provide better parking services during big events.

According to the International Parking Institute, parking is a $25 billion a year business.  And, it is almost certain that this market is going to be taken over by mobile and wireless technologies and infrastructure that will generate more revenue while, at the same time, provide better service to the consumer.

Parking is a very emotional subject because it is a critical success factor in getting to where we want to go.  Is there anything more frustrating than circling to no end trying to find an available parking space or nicer than having your SmartPhone simply direct you to the closest & best spot?

So, it won’t be very long before it will be taken for granted that every time you need to find an available parking space, you’ll use your SmartPhone to find and guide you to an available spot.  Longer term, you’ll be able to reserve a parking place with your phone days before you head out to the airport or downtown.  It will become automatic with billing and payments handled in the background.  You’ll be able to focus on your meeting or getting to your flight.  Sweet!

I acknowledge input for the column from Shawn Conrad, CAE, Executive Director of the International Parking Institute, conrad@parking.org, 540-371-7535.

Written By:

J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D.
Principal Analyst
Mobile & Wireless
MobileTrax LLC
gerry.purdy@mobiletrax.com
404-406-5309
 
Disclosure Statement: From time to time, I may have a direct or indirect equity position in a company that is mentioned in this column.  If that situation happens, then I’ll disclose it at that time.