In today's blog, we feature an In the Spotlight interview with Mexx Uljee, Chief Commercial Officer of SpecifAI.
As a leading company in the parking industry, SpecifAI specializes in data integration and analytics, delivering cutting-edge solutions that are transforming the way the industry operates. In this interview, Mexx shares insights into how SpecifAI is revolutionizing the parking sector with their innovative approaches, and what the future holds for smart parking technology.
Revolutionizing Parking through Data with SpecifAI
1. Can you share your perspective on the current state of digital transformation within the parking industry?
Mexx Uljee:
I think the parking industry is undergoing a shift. Maybe not as fast as other industries, or even per continent, so to say, but a shift nonetheless. In my opinion, manual processes are being replaced by automation technology and systems. I've seen advancements like IoT sensors, revenue control systems, online payment channels, and smart cameras. They’re generating more data than ever before.
The adoption of cloud computing technologies and a more agnostic approach to data sharing are also significant. All these developments, in my opinion, are powering real-time data collection and leveraging the power of data. But how do we actually transform this goldmine of data into actionable insights? That's the hard part, right?
2. Can you explain how SpecifAI integrates into the industry and the solutions you offer to the market?
Mexx Uljee:
So basically, what we do is pull data from multiple sources, parking-related systems, and other sources. Today, for example, we pull data from your mobile payment apps, revenue control systems, POCs, intercoms, parking guidance, and enforcement systems—even from public sources like weather, events, concerts, conventions, and sporting events, among many others.
Once we’ve successfully integrated and aggregated these data sources, we process and transform them into actionable insights—that’s what we do. Our mission is very clear: breaking down data silos and transforming data together with our clients while embracing a data-driven approach to the parking management decision-making process.
That’s what we do at our core, and we’ve been doing it for the past four years as a European-based company. We are currently actively trying to spearhead our efforts in the North American region as well.
3. When discussing data, security and trust are crucial considerations. Can you elaborate on SpecifAI approach to data security and how you ensure clients can trust you with their data?
Mexx Uljee:
In regards to data sharing, ownership, and security, at SpecifAI, we understand the importance of keeping your data safe and ensuring that you remain the owner of your data. We implement robust security measures to protect your data. For example, we use encryption to ensure that only authorized personnel have access. We also conduct regular security audits, continuously evaluating our infrastructure, storage, integration processes, and security protocols.
With the rules and permissions built into our platform, we dictate who sees what type of data at any given time, prioritizing security efforts around data protection.
When it comes to data ownership, we believe that any data we collect or store for our clients is owned entirely by them, not by us. That’s how we handle security and ownership, and that’s our vision on the matter.
4. Can you expand on some of the key use cases where SpecifAI successfully transform data into actionable insights, and how these insights have benefited your clients in optimizing their parking operations?
Mexx Uljee:
Just to give the audience an understanding of how we’re able to transform data into actionable insights: We've built an extensive library of integrations and data pipelines into our platform. A data pipeline effectively transforms data into a format that you can use, for example, in your business intelligence suite to provide charts, graphs, and other insights needed to optimize decision-making.
For example, we focus on use cases like understanding peak usage times and parking behavior, which allow for better staffing and resource allocation for parking operations. We also identify underutilized areas, enabling pricing adjustments that optimize revenue from parking spaces—a critical factor in managing perishable parking inventory.
Customer experience enhancements are another priority. By tailoring the parking platform, we aim to create a more user-friendly experience. After all, everyone wants a seamless parking experience that doesn’t leave a bad taste in their mouth. Reducing dwell times and providing insights into customer experience are metrics that we consider very important, and these are areas we continuously work to improve for our clients.
Last but not least, demand-based pricing recommendations have been a buzz in the industry for some time. By analyzing historical data in combination with weather and events, we can provide tailored pricing recommendations that fit within our clients’ pricing strategies and the bandwidths for making those adjustments. These are the use cases we actively work on with our clients, whom we view as partners in this process.
5. Do you also collaborate with other industry providers to deliver comprehensive solutions to the market?
Mexx Uljee:
Actually, we do. We’ve got quite a few partners that we’ve integrated with, and it’s more or less like a partnership with another tier, to be honest. We also have a couple of PARCS vendors that we partner with, where we help them provide analytics to their clients.
They’re the hardware specialists—the experts in barriers and systems. That’s their core competency. What we try to bring to the table is an additional competitive edge, which is data and data analytics. Together with our partners, we provide insights back to the users and clients, enabling them to leverage their data and make more informed and better decisions based on it.
In the end, we all want to see our mutual clients succeed, as it helps the industry grow and move to the next phase.
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We hope you found our conversation with Mexx Uljee from SpecifAI both insightful and inspiring. Throughout the interview, Mexx shared valuable perspectives on how SpecifAI is leveraging data to transform the parking industry, from integrating advanced technologies to enhancing decision-making processes. As the parking landscape continues to evolve, SpecifAI’s commitment to breaking down data silos and empowering clients with actionable insights positions them at the forefront of innovation. We appreciate you joining us for this deep dive into the future of parking, and we look forward to bringing you more exclusive insights from the industry’s trailblazers. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more from our "In the Spotlight" series.
About SpecifAI Parking
SpecifAI Parking is a leading provider of parking intelligence. Their platform performs real-time monitoring and predictive analytics to provide essential operations and financial data to parking owners and operators, and it can be seamlessly integrated with all PARCS and other parking technologies. SpecifAI Parking can be found online at http://specifai-parking.com.
About Parking Network
Parking Network is the leading information source for parking. We connect professionals through our online and offline channels. On our online platform parking.net, we publish the latest news, product showcases, job openings, and tenders related to parking. On our platform, you can access the most complete industry and parking professionals directory. Offline, we host niche-specific networking events such as the Airport Parking Network Event.
