Today, there is a significant opening to apply mobile technology to create a more user-friendly, efficient, and valuable parking experience. 

FREMONT, CA: Over the years, technology has become increasingly important in both parking and transit, and the evolutionary themes are similar across both industries. When it comes to parking, mobile technology will allow drivers to make more informed parking decisions based on real-time information. Mobile technologies can also assist parking professionals through more efficient asset management. Know more here. 

The success of parking applications is evidence of the high demand for mobile technology in parking management. There are a lot of parking apps in the market today which focus on localization. They are designed for cities to cover as many parking spaces as possible within the coverage area. There is an on-demand parking feature available in certain parking apps that allow users to pay in advance to reserve a place before they intend to park. Some apps are specifically tailored to finding a space to park that is available on the spot. Most parking apps are free to download and offer a variety of payment methods too.

Seamless payments, dynamic pricing, and other such features of mobile applications can provide opportunities for both public and private operators. A demand-response program can manage public parking on a block-by-block, time-band by time-band basis. Mobile apps are using a real-time, algorithmic methodology to generate optimal parking rates. Many app developers are also embracing well-tested mobile payment technology to offer seamless payment experience for users. These parking apps can enable mobile payment at all kiosks and meters in the city, allowing drivers to remotely add time to their parking sessions, abort a session early to avoid wasting unused time and prepay for parking. The data gathered from these could potentially be monetized, for planning or to push offers to customers.

With mobile technology, parking providers have an opportunity to improve the customer experience significantly while simultaneously gaining a more holistic, accurate, and real-time picture of how parking facilities can be used.