This week we are concluding our blog series on the future technologies coming to a garage near you. In our final highlight, we are featuring smart devices and edge computing.

Our lives have become overrun by smart devices and they impact nearly every experience we have and every task we undertake each day. Smart phones are so ubiquitous now that expecting every parker would have one at all the times is no longer a stretch. They have become a necessity in life. They are the consumer’s primary window to the world for interacting with any kind of product or service, including parking. Smart devices now also come in the form of televisions, tablets, cars, and more.

Technically defined, a smart device is an electronic device capable of computation, interactively or autonomously, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols, but often capable of functioning in offline mode as well. Further, edge computing refers to the distributed computing that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data typically on the smart devices such as smart phones or autonomous cars.

From the parking perspective, the opportunities these smart devices have provided already for the industry are endless. They do everything from aid the user in finding available parking, navigating to that location, entering and exiting a garage touchless and ticketless, paying for parking, calling for a valet, much more. Further, the operator uses them as an essential tool for tracking consumer data, recording vehicle information, and communicating vital information to their customers. With advancements in the connected car technologies, how a consumer interacts with parking services today manually via smartphone, will move over to the car’s smart devices and consoles, and cars would automatically interact with the parking services without the consumer’s manual intervention.

It has been such thrill to take you all on this journey to highlight the trending technologies that continue to infiltrate our lives and how they will impact parking in the coming years (probably sooner than later). Take a look back at this series and all of the technologies we have discussed:

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML)
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Blockchain
• Cloud Computing

It’s important to make an effort to understand the complexities of these technologies, the impacts they will have on parking, and the opportunities that will present themselves as a result. ParkEngage continues to identify new and trending technologies and develop solutions to create the most convenient, cost-effective, and efficient parking experience for owners, operators, and customers.

Contact us to schedule a demo and start taking your operation digital now!

In the next feature in our series of highlights on the trending technologies coming to a parking operation near year, we are discussing cloud computing and hardware virtualization.

Cloud computing refers to the on-demand delivery of computing services—machines, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence—over the Internet (“the cloud”). Organizations using these technologies are able to pay as they go, scale as needed, and rent to use instead of own. Hardware Virtualization is the abstraction of the various hardware resources into software and their functions delivered as services over the Internet from the Cloud.

Traditionally, the parking industry has been hardware intensive with the prevalence of bulky and expensive hardware equipment like PARCS systems, ticket dispensing machines, pay-on-foot machines, cash registers, on premise desktops and server machines, etc. However, cloud computing and hardware virtualization are leading to the minimization of the hardware onsite in the garage, thus significantly reducing operations costs on electricity, paper etc. Many of these solutions are being consolidated or eliminated completely from off-street and on-street parking operations, creating a more streamlined experience for parking staff and customers.

Next generation cloud-native parking technologies, with minimal hardware and software on premise, are now being developed to be self-managing, freeing garage operations from expensive hardware maintenance and labor costs. With inexpensive sensors and readers, mobile payment on customer phones, and ALPR based enforcement, all the access control and enforcement hardware like gates and barriers are becoming virtualized. In addition, wayfinding signage is giving way to digital signage, guiding the customer all the way from the road to their vacant parking spot, reducing carbon emissions and the time to park. ParkEngage is leading the way in developing parking technologies that create a far lower impact on organizations’ bottom lines, allowing our clients to pay as they use and scale to meet their specific needs. This helps to dramatically reduce the costs associated with equipment that is often already outdated shortly after installation, while keeping up with the latest technology trends to meet customer expectations.

Contact us to schedule a demo and start taking your operation digital now!