TIBA Share Their Access and Revenue Control Insight on Parking Talks

On our latest edition of Parking Talks, we asked industry experts to share their views about how parking access and revenue control systems are evolving and potential consequences of this evolution. We were happy to have Rony Homossany, VP of International Sales and Marketing from TIBA join the discussion. Here, Rony discusses what we can expect in the future with regard to PARCS, barrierless parking, enforcement and we hear more about what TIBA will be offering later in the year. 

Now That Barrierless Parking Is Becoming More Common, Do You It Will Become the Norm in the Future?

"That’s an interesting question because different people look at what we call barrierless and there are different names for it, some people will call it frictionless, others call it ticketless. The real question is what’s in it for the driver and what’s in it for the operator of the parking lot. I think everybody wants to achieve the same idea, which is to allow drivers to drive in and out as quickly as possible on one side but remain identified so they can be charged for the actual time they stayed there. As technologies progress and as we see more and more ways to identify cars as they are driving in, without having to slow them down, we will see more frictionless or ticketless systems coming into effect. I think the actual barrier itself will be the last thing to disappear because it is probably the only way to slow drivers down and make sure that they were identified on entry. There is an additional factor of trying to change the driver. If the driver drove (away) without paying for the time he was using the parking space and if there is no barrier, depending on the country, sometimes you can not chase the driver. It’s really up to the governance in that geography to see if you can chase the driver using their license plate. I think over time you’ll see systems become more frictionless, ticketless and eventually the barrier will disappear as well."

Why Do You Personally Feel Access and Exit Control Is a Key Component in Parking and How Do You Think Enforcement Will Be Affected by Barrierless Parking?

"The access and the exit control is the only way to make sure that a driver is being charged for the use of the parking lot. (It depends on) what you want to achieve, depending on the purpose of the parking lot; in some instances that parking lot needs to generate dollars or revenue from the first moment that a driver starts using it. This is typically at airports or mid-town parking lots, and then there are other situations where a parking lot is more a service to the people attending the establishment, for example, in a shopping center you may want to give a couple of hours free parking. So depending on what you want to achieve, the exit barrier is that single point of contact with the driver, or needs to be, to ascertain whether the driver needs to pay or not and how much. Access control and exit control will probably be the last thing to disappear as systems automate more and more.

Enforcement will depend on our ability to identify the car and the driver and the relationship between the car and the driver. If it’s a rental car it may be more difficult, if it’s a car that belongs to a company it may be more difficult to identify who the actual driver was. Depending on the country, the department of motor vehicles will or will not expose the details of the driver to private companies. For example in Scandinavia, it’s very common to expose the details of the driver and so it’s easier to chase a driver who left without paying. In other countries, like Australia or the US, it’s much more difficult to get the details of the driver so really if you don’t stop the driver – and a barrier - although it’s not a real physical restraint and people can drive through it, there is some sort of a behavioral issue about it so when people see it they typically will stop and they will pay."

How Do You Foresee the Geographical Uptake of Barrierless Parking?

"You’ll see frictionless technologies implemented first in Europe and Australia and only at the later phase in the US, in our assessment."

What New Developments Can We Expect from Your Company This Year?

"TIBA is looking at what we call the ‘park tech’ ecosystem and from our understanding of customer requirement, they want to get away from legacy products. They want to be able to manage and control different products and different types of barriers and lane equipment from one control center without worrying about where they purchased the equipment from so you’re going to see more and more fusion between the lane equipment, barriers and the Bluetooth technologies that are coming out, the RFID technologies, whether short or long distance. There is more and more fusion that is going to happen so you can control any type of equipment from any control center. What TIBA is focusing it’s efforts on is creating this fusion between different types of products, not necessarily TIBA products, but we are going to come up with solutions that allow you to manage access, entry, exit, reservation of different technologies and not just TIBA technologies. This is what you will see in the coming trade shows in the US over the next 6 months, fusion products."

We would like to thank Rony for taking the time to participate in the discussion. View the responses from all parties in full on Parking Talks here:

About TIBA Parking System 

For 30 years, TIBA has provided innovative solutions for the parking market, resulting in reliable, user-friendly products that lower the price of initial acquisition and the cost of ongoing maintenance. TIBA has successfully implemented this through a focus on software development, while continuing to enhance and support its reliable hardware platforms. This allows owners to keep the capital investment down while still enjoying the latest software functionality. With extensive global experience, TIBA’s robust, scalable architecture enables parking operators to keep pace with the latest trends in centralized operations, automated smart facilities, web reservations and mobile payments. TIBA’s flexible software grants parking operators to be IoT-connected and leverage big data to increase revenue. TIBA’s agile integrations with third party systems empower parking operators to be an integral part of the growing Smart Cities ecosystem.

TIBA serves parking operators and owners globally, across diverse industries such as hotels & hospitality, airports, universities, shopping centers, hospitals & medical centers, and local, state & federal governments. For more information about TIBA Parking Systems, visit www.tibaparking.com.