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Short Parking Stories

July, 2017

SURVEY FINDS AMERICANS DON’T
TRUST RIDESHARING COMPANIES TO BUILD DRIVERLESS CARS


INRIX Research surveyed 5,054 drivers in five countries (U.S., U.K, Germany, France and Italy) to understand their experiences and perceptions of connected and autonomous vehicles.


1.4 times as many Americans trust tech companies to secure their connected car data than automakers. The trend was reversed in the four other countries with 1.5 times as many trusting automakers.


In the U.S., Baby Boomers tend to believe connected cars and autonomous vehicles will be less safe than cars on the road today, while Gen Xs and Millennials expect them to be safer.


INRIX, Inc., the world leader in connected car services and location analytics, today published the results of its Connected & Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Consumer Survey, with insight into the products, services and pain points emerging in this multi-trillion dollar market.


The INRIX Research survey revealed three key themes around consumer experiences of, and their attitudes toward, connected cars and autonomous vehicles: concerns around data privacy, the importance of road and vehicle safety, and the level of trust and confidence in the connected car and autonomous vehicles market. The report also found that familiarity with emerging technologies and their benefits will be central to winning customers. In addition, current owners of connected vehicles (aggregated across the five countries) are significantly more receptive to connected features, more trusting of data sharing, and more likely to purchase an autonomous vehicle.


“A new battleground is emerging between automakers, tech companies and ridesharing companies in the race to develop connected and autonomous vehicles,” explained Bob Pishue, senior economist at INRIX. “With hundreds of millions of connected cars expected to be on the roads within the next 15 years, the market share will be owned by companies that can educate drivers and gain consumer trust.”


Technology giants (i.e. Apple and Google) are trusted slightly more than automakers to build autonomous vehicles (27 percent vs. 23 percent), followed distantly by ridesharing companies (four percent).


Six out of 10 respondents (62 percent) believe AVs will be widely available within a decade.


While 75 percent of Baby Boomers believe that autonomous vehicles will likely improve access for the elderly, 53 percent are still unlikely to purchase an AV.


Almost three (2.8) times as many Germans trust traditional carmakers to build autonomous cars compared to tech giants, and fewer than four percent of respondents trust ridesharing.


Nearly half of current connected car owners say they would likely or definitely purchase an autonomous vehicle, compared to 19 percent of non-connected car owners.


More than two-thirds of all Germans believe that autonomous vehicles will likely improve access for the elderly.


Source: Inrix


WAGEWORKS AND SPOTHERO PARTNER
TO
DELIVER OFFERING, ENABLING
COMMUTERS
TO RESERVE DAILY PARKING WITH PRE-TAX DOLLARS


WageWorks, Inc. a leader in administering Consumer-Directed Benefits (CDBs), announced a partnership with SpotHero, a leading parking reservation service in North America. The first-of-its-kind offering enables commuters to book and pay for daily parking with pre-tax dollars through SpotHero’s mobile app. Anyone with aWageWorks Commuter Account, which allows commuters to use pre-tax funds to pay for parking at work, can take advantage of this new benefit. Using SpotHero, participants can find convenient parking garages near the office, compare rates and book a spot in advance using pre-tax dollars.


“WageWorks is always seeking new ways to help people utilize pre-tax benefits to save time and money on commuting,” said Joe Jackson, CEO at WageWorks. “We’re excited to partner with an industry leader like SpotHero to make parking easier for commuters who want a convenient way to book with pre-tax dollars on the go.”


“SpotHero is pleased to partner with WageWorks to make commuting more convenient and affordable,” said Elan Mosbacher, VP of Strategy & Partnerships for SpotHero. “As transportation goes multi-modal – with employees taking public transit one day, driving another and working from home the next – this partnership gives employees the flexibility they need when it comes to paying for daily parking with pre-tax dollars.”


Used by millions of drivers, SpotHero’s mobile app enables them to find parking in more than 5,000 garages and lots in more than 47 major cities – including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Washington DC, Boston and Philadelphia. Participants enrolled in a WageWorks Commuter Account will now have the same access to these garages and lots for their qualified commuter parking.


Source: WageWorks 


Smart Cities Lighting for a
Brighter Future


Legacy high-pressure sodium street lights and the equally outdated street poles that house them are among the most expensive—and often the most expensive—line item on a city’s electricity bill. New, Smart LED Solutions from Tarsier Ltd. can reduce energy costs by 63%, increase street brightness, and, most importantly, provide intelligent nodes to create a network of smart city applications.


Taking advantage of the worldwide, outdoor upgrade to LEDs, Tarsier is building out a new, planet sized sensor network using that infrastructure to deliver both energy- efficient lighting and a real time, global database of information that allows customers to manage and understand their physical environment to enable greater productivity, efficiency and security.


Traditional light sources, such as fluorescent lamps, incandescent bulbs, halogen spots and high-pressure discharge lamps are limited by the technology of their time. Edison’s invention was a long time ago.


Current high-quality LED products offer unparalleled lifetime, virtually eliminating maintenance costs, massive energy savings of up to 75% compared to traditional light source, and a similar reduction in a company´s CO2 emissions. The amount of savings generated can make an investment in new lighting a cash-flow-positive exercise.


The information reported to Tarsier’s Content Management System (“CMS’) system consists of lamp poles dynamic parameters, such as levels of ambient light, voltage, current, power factor, energy consumption, temperature and other real time data.


The two-way communication allows numerous automatic and manual modifications, such as advanced scheduling by the CMS to suit current environmental circumstances.


Increased LED Luminaire Lifetime Using dimming options, either automatically or manually with LED luminaries, results in an extended lifetime of the LED luminaire. This further reduces costs, postpones maintenance and any future equipment renewal.


Smart Mapping Integrated Google maps services enables an accurate positioning of each LED luminaire with its own unique parameters and real-time information.


The Tarsier solution establishes a wireless network between all LED luminaries to control, operate and visualize the status of the LED luminaries, either automatically or manually.


The Tarsier solution includes the Tarsier Light Control Unit (LCU) installed inside each LED luminaire, receiving control commands for its operation and sending information on the status of the LED luminaire. The LCU has a built-in energy meter and plug-and-play functionality upon installation.


Source: Tarsier


Momentum Fuel Technologies And Geotab Deliver Live CNG Vehicle Data And Fuel Usage Reports


Geotab announced support for compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel level and temperature on all Momentum Fuel Technologies’ CNG fueling tanks and systems. A breakthrough for the industry, fleets with CNG vehicles can now have the powerful visibility into their fuel usage and driver behavior that is already offered to other vehicles using Geotab’s fleet management solution.


This integration addresses the industry’s limited ability to use telematics to report CNG level from the vehicle for accurate fuel level readings. With a limited network of CNG stations and an average slow-fill CNG vehicle fill up taking eight to 10 hours, this insight into how much fuel a vehicle actually receives can help enable increased vehicle uptime, timely deliveries and reduce anxiety around fuel levels for fleet managers and drivers.


“The ability to support these parameters allows fleets to combat driver range anxiety in addition to providing accurate fuel usage reports by vehicle, allowing them to understand fuel usage by vehicle or by driver,” said Scott Sutarik, Associate VP, Commercial Vehicle Solutions. “Developing this capability for CNG vehicles, which according to the U.S. Department of Energy are said to have six to 11 percent less emissions [1], is another step in Geotab’s long-standing commitment to creating a greener world.”


Together, Momentum Fuel Technologies and Geotab developed the integration using Geotab’s patented curve logic algorithm to receive high-resolution data via the vehicle’s diagnostic port. The Geotab GO device transmits data from Momentum Fuel Technologies systems via cellular networks, delivering comprehensive reports and dashboards to readily and easily visualize trends and monitor levels.


Source: Geotab


Towne Park Announces Strategic
Acquisition of Park Plus Parking


Towne Park announced that it has acquired Park Plus Parking, a leading provider of parking solutions for hotels and airports in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Together the companies will offer the region’s most powerful full-range hospitality services platform, helping clients to build better guest experiences and improve business performance.


“Park Plus Parking brings to Towne Park valuable relationships with a number of high-profile clients, as they currently provide valet services at Ritz Carlton and Marriott International hotels and off-airport parking services at John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Newark Liberty International Airport,” stated Frank Pikus, executive vice president, acquisitions at Towne Park. “We are particularly excited about their strength in off-airport parking, which is a natural progression of our platform that complements our value proposition and adds an attractive growth driver.”


The acquisition of Park Plus Parking strengthens Towne Park’s position in large, growing markets and opens up additional revenue opportunities. The combination creates the largest service network in the Northeastern U.S., with an on-call staff that features over 800 associates, enabling Towne Park to respond to the heavy demand periods or special needs of any of the more than 70 portfolio clients it now serves in the region.


The deal also accelerates Towne Park’s product roadmap, adding strong off-airport parking capabilities that build upon Towne Park’s strengths in deploying highly motivated, high-caliber, mobile employees and in supporting services with sophisticated processes and systems.


Source: Towne Park



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