During March our excitement grew as we prepared for Intertraffic Amsterdam 2022! In the run-up, we gave our network a taster of what they could expect at the tradeshow with a very special edition of our Parking Network Virtual Conference.
Then, at the event itself, we hosted a three-day Parking Network Symposium and an anniversary party to celebrate 25 years of Parking Network.
Whilst, Intertraffic was certainly the highlight of the month, there was plenty else happening in the parking industry worldwide. Innova hosted a webinar with us, exploring the impact of Deep Learning on smart parking and mobility. And one of our latest members, Technoso Control Systems, introduced themselves during an In the Spotlight interview.
And, there are plenty of headlines worthy of a mention:
Propark Mobility has acquired Pilgrim Parking, significantly enhancing its footprint in the Boston area. Pilgrim Parking has over 30 locations, with 250 employees all of which will be retained by Propark, along with Pilgrim Parking’s branding and existing service ideals.
Metropolis Technologies has acquired Premier Parking, in a move set to accelerate the transformation of parking facilities into connected mobility infrastructure. The combined company will expand the network of Metropolis facilities to more than 600 garages and lots across almost 60 cities.
FLASH has secured over $250 million in funding, helping them to advance the connected mobility ecosystem. Today, FLASH solutions are used at over 10,000 customer locations across all major U.S. cities and Canada, processing more than 11 million parkers per month and over $1 billion in annual transactions. The funding will accelerate this growth by helping them grow their team and product line.
In Australia, Bunbury will overhaul its outdated parking management and enforcement system with 2,000 vehicle detection sensors, a wayfinding and payment app, parking meters, and a compliance management platform from Smart Parking. The installation will manage parking across commercial lease parking, short stay parking, commercial loading bays, taxi ranks, specially designated bays, permit-only bays, and on-street bays.
Parkopedia and Sunny Cars, one of the largest rental car companies in Europe, are working together to provide drivers with on-street and off-street parking information across 89 countries worldwide. Sunny Cars users will be given access to the Sunny2go mobile app, featuring Parkopedia’s data, 14 days prior to their vehicle rental, allowing them to plan their journey ahead of time.
Urbiotica is working with popular tourist destinations to improve mobility through innovation and digitalization. Urbiotica’s Fastprk solutions help direct drivers to parking facilities with available spaces, helping to optimize the capacity of outdoor parking facilities and on-street parking spaces.
License plate recognition cameras are commonplace in Europe, and many other countries in the world, yet in the US they are not frequently adopted by parking operators, in part due to the challenges posed by nonstandard license plates. To empower their growth in the US market, Survision has worked to overcome these challenges by focusing on reading rear plates. Having tweaked their Micropak LPR camera, Survision is now able to read rear plates with a high degree of accuracy, and without needing to make costly changes to parking access and exit lanes.
Mobility hubs are set to transform the quality of life in Rotterdam and Amsterdam following a collaboration between APCOA and MOBIAN. The so-called MobiHubs will encourage drivers to use last-mile solutions, with drivers offered bicycles, taking traffic off busy inner-city streets.
Flowbird is taking the hassle out of mobile payment with the introduction of Pay by Text. Drivers no longer need to download an app or create an account to pay for parking, they simply text a code to a number provided by the parking facility or scan a QR code to register their parking session. Get My Parking is another company working to streamline the parking payment process with their Tap & Park technology. Drivers no longer need to download an app to register at a car park, instead, they simply tap their credit card, and when integrated with LPR technology, they can simply drive straight in.
The challenges faced by parking technology during winter weather conditions were also a topic at the fore during March. When snow falls on the ground it can make it difficult to monitor and enforce parking, as bay markings can be obscured by snow, but this is no problem for HecSpot parking surveillance system which can successfully monitor parking occupancy, helping to direct drivers to facilities with available spaces. Similarly, Parquery’s camera-based smart parking solution avoids the common pitfalls of sensor-based systems which can be damaged by snowplows and cease to function under a covering of snow.
The Changing Faces of Parking
Passport has welcomed Brian Pagels as SVP of Sales and Bengt Horsma as SVP of Payments. Their appointment will drive expansion in sales, strategy development, and product innovation. Brent Warrington has taken the reigns at Planet to lead their transformation and create a global technology leader, as Proximis, Datatrans, protel Hotelsoftware, and Hoist Group combine forces. And, at EasyPark Johan Birgersson has made way for Cameron Clayton, who will take over as CEO on the 19th of April.
