4th June 2013 Smart parking spaces will number almost a million by 2020 Faced with growing environmental and economic pressures on transportation, cities are reexamining how and where parking is provided, and developing a more balanced view to better manage parking supply and demand.
Enabled by new technologies, innovative approaches to parking are becoming a cornerstone of cities' mobility strategies. According to a new report from Navigant Research, the installed base of on-street smart parking spaces will surpass 950,000 worldwide by 2020, with a six-fold increase in annual revenue. “The parking industry is going through its biggest evolution since the introduction of the first parking meters in Oklahoma City in 1935,” says Eric Woods, research director. “It is being transformed by new technologies that are increasing operational efficiency and customer expectations, and by new perspectives on the role of parking within cities.”
Essentially, the goal of smart parking is to enable both drivers and parking managers to optimise the use of parking capacity and reduce congestion on the roads. A number of technologies provide the basis for smart parking solutions – including vehicle sensors, wireless communications, and data analytics. Smart parking is also made viable by innovation in areas such as smartphone apps for customer services, mobile payments, and in-car navigation systems. At the heart of the smart parking concept is the ability to access, collect, analyse, disseminate in real time, and act on parking usage information. In the future, this will form part of a growing "Internet of Things" bringing devices, systems and people closer together – greatly improving the speed and efficiency of the world around us.
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