What is Smart Parking?

Smart parking is an integral part of shared mobility and is the main driver behind Liftango’s many Infratech (infrastructure technology) partnerships.

What is smart parking?

Smart parking is a broad term used for many different applications in parking lots, garages and corporate sites. Boom gates, License Plate Recognition technology and payment applications for accessing parking are all part of what makes parking, smart.

With both the user and client in mind, it is designed to make it easier for both parties to access parking and gather parking data

It’s a technology and trend that’s taking off all over the world. IoT Analytics’ Smart Parking Market Report 2019 forecasts $3.8 billion in spending on smart parking solutions by 2023. It estimates that 11% of global public parking spaces as of 2018 were already smart ones. The percentage of smart parking spaces (for on-and off-street parking) is expected to reach 16% by 2023.

At Liftango, we adapt and integrate with partners on many fronts, smart parking not being the least of these. Among these partnerships include both Smarter City Solutions and PaybyPhone. Having launched our partnership with Deakin University in early March, Liftango is integrating with Smarter City Solutions to bring Deakin’s carpooling program to incentivise sustainable travel with discounted parking for drivers. The aim here is to remove the challenges faced by overcrowded parking lots and provide better commute options for staff and students. The same can be said for Liftango’s integration among Macquarie University. This institution’s 40,000+ students now have access to discounted parking for carpoolers, a guaranteed win-win for a demographic not known to be flush with cash.

Optimising the use of technology to make parking easier also extends to our smartphones as well. One App making parking easier is the CellOPark App from Smarter City Solutions, currently being used across universities including Macquarie, Deakin and Monash. This App makes paying for parking as simple as parking your car, selecting the zone in which you’ve parked, and pressing 'Start'.

It's as easy as that.

Integrating with smart parking makes the commute significantly easier for all of us. Coupling this with the strong, productive relationships we’ve built with universities, corporations and tech partners—we’re combining our strengths, as it were—to ensure the experience is better, easier, cheaper and more productive than what it has been in the past. There are any number of studies to cite which indicate how much more productive and happier people are when their commute has been quick, efficient and stress-free.

Who uses Smart Parking?

Institutions, businesses and corporations use Smart Parking—in fact all entities who work within and interact with the greater urban infrastructure should consider smart parking (at the very least) as a useful means by which to improve the commuting process, of which securing a parking spot plays a major role. According to an IBM-commissioned study, around 30% of a city’s traffic is caused by drivers searching for a parking spot. Added to this gridlock-incitement, the study found that drivers looking around parking spots for a space are more likely to get into an accident; with one in every five traffic accidents occurring in or around parking lots.

Smart parking apps can also be of aid to cities with large populations and traffic issues. San Francisco is one major centre benefitting from smart parking technology; having implemented the tech, the time taken to find a parking space in the Bay area was reduced by 43%, with distances driven to get to a space dropping by 30% and greenhouse gas emissions also dropped by 30%.

Making Smart Parking, Smarter.

At Liftango, we’ve created a framework that supports third-party parking solutions, which led to the enabling of smart parking integration. By providing a push API (that is, the enabling the sending of a push message to a web Application via a push service; an Application server can send a push message at any time, even when a web Spplication or user agent is inactive parking partners have little to no development requirements) means Liftango takes on all the heavy lifting. We’re creating a powerful carpooling incentive which is making the most of existing parking software to drive uptake for clients.

Parking hassles, in a perfect world, will soon be a thing of the past, and we’re doing what we can to make it happen.