Industry News
April, 2018
The Village of Romeoville, IL, announced the launch of PassportParking®, a mobile parking application that allows parkers to pay for their parking through their smartphones. The app is powered by the global leader of mobile payments for parking and transit, Passport, serving cities and universities throughout North America. This is the first time Romeoville will have a Metra stop in the Village. Parkers will be able to avoid frigid winter weather by quickly paying for parking on the go or in advance without putting cash in a machine. A select number of Romeoville annual and semi-annual permits will be available to the public. There’s a lot to celebrate in Windsor, Ontario, this season — the City of Windsor marks its milestone 125th birthday, the province of Ontario honors its sesquicentennial and Canada commemorates 150 years as a nation. With the merriment of its anniversaries the City of Windsor takes another leap forward taking its citizens into the digital age of parking. Today, the city announced the arrival of the Passport Canada app. The app allows for users to park using their smartphones at any of the 3,000 parking spaces available in the city — 1,500 on-street spaces and 1,500 off-street spaces.
Leading payment security provider Bluefin Payment Systems has announced a new partnership with EDC Corporation to provide Bluefin’s PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) solution to municipalities, higher education, airports and hospitals utilizing the company’s AIMS Parking Management Software platform.
EDC Corporation develops and supports software for the parking industry, specializing in citation, permit, and event management along with mobile and license plate recognition (LPR) enforcement.
J.J. MacKay Canada Limited (MacKay Meters), a leading manufacturer of smart parking meters, and HotSpot Parking Inc. (HotSpot), a Fredericton based company best known for their pay-by-phone parking and transit solutions, today announced a fully integrated parking solution for the City of Moncton, New Brunswick. The City of Moncton recently purchased several hundred new mkBeacon™ wireless smart parking meters from MacKay. The City’s MacKay mkBeacon parking meters will now communicate their paid status to HotSpot’s Realtime Parking Map, helping drivers find available parking spaces by using HotSpot’s mobile application.
A five-level parking structure recently completed for Toyota of Downtown Los Angeles is serving the business in multiple ways. The basement level is for vehicle maintenance and repairs. The showroom is inside a portion of the parking structure’s ground level, which is designated for customer parking. There is a small amount of parking on the first two above-grade levels. The top level will be used to park inventory. Irvine, Calif.-based Bomel Construction erected the 196-stall parking structure for general contractor ConAm Building. Trammell Crow was the developer of the entire 290,000-square-foot project.
The Parking Australia President, Sharon Prior, has today announced the resignation of Lorraine Duffy as the organization’s Chief Executive Officer, who will be finishing at the end of February. The President acknowledged that Duffy leaves behind an enduring legacy of hard work, tenacity and change during her tenure, which commenced in 2013. Duffy was Parking Australia’s inaugural CEO and achieved many positive outcomes including, structural reforms, improved member services, championed the industry accreditation program and helped boost the public profile of the association. The recruitment process for the next CEO is under way and Duffy has agreed to stay on if required to assist with the transition.
Student safety remains a top priority at campuses around the United States, which is why Code Blue Corporation is proud to renew its partnership with the Clery Center as a sponsor for Jeanne Clery Act Training events and during National Campus Safety Awareness Month (NCSAM). The Clery Center regularly hosts Clery Act training around the country, providing its members with exclusive services, expertise, resources and customized campus assessments. Additionally, the Clery Center partners with colleges, universities, and other organizations each September for NCSAM to offer free, high-quality programming, educational tools and resources that promote a community approach to campus safety.
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has awarded NextGen Parking a contract for the upgrade and addition of parking revenue control equipment for five garages on its expanded parking complex in Dallas, Texas. The $1.1 million contract standardizes all UTSW parking facilities on a common Designa ABACUS PARCS system, hosted in NextGen’s commercial cloud environment. The 3-year project, which includes a sixth new garage under contract to Vaughn Construction, will provide UTSW with a common, integrated capability for the management of all parking facilities campus-wide. Replacement of equipment in additional garages as well as a 10-year service & support program will be incorporated in the future as part of an enterprise-wide initiative to upgrade and standardize all parking controls on a next generation platform.
Ordnance Survey (OS) has been appointed by Business Secretary Greg Clark to help shape a national infrastructure capable of supporting a nationwide network of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs). The four-year project lies at the heart of the Government’s modern Industrial Strategy, and further establishes the UK as one of the world’s leading locations in this sector. E-CAVE will focus on the challenges of creating effective connected environments using OS digital data expertise. OS will also be engaged in supporting and collaborating with CAV testing across the four recently announced CAV test bed projects overseen by Meridian.
2018 has brought with it a new way to park on the Southern Oregon University (SOU) campus. Students, faculty, staff, and visitors can now skip payment at meters and purchase parking permits in moments with PayByPhone, joining their university counterparts including The University of California, Berkeley and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Acting as an alternative to cash payments, the mobile parking app offers a quick way for drivers to pay, while allowing university parking services to easily manage these locations on campus.
“After seeing its success at other universities, we are confident that PayByPhone will ease the parking experience for any visitor to our campus,” said Frederick Creek, Director of Campus Public Safety and Parking at SOU. “We can’t wait to see how it assists commuters, and the Parking Services department throughout the year.” In addition, the company announced that The Miami Parking Authority’s (MPA’s) PayByPhone app, has reached a new milestone by surpassing over half a million transactions in a single month. The December 2017 results confirm that the app started and ended the year on a high note, with 83% of drivers choosing to park with PayByPhone at on-street locations. Since launching in 2008, the app has proven to be a powerful force in the City, achieving performance goals ahead of time and generating savings for the parking authority. This success has also resulted in the reduction of 50% of the MPA’s multi-space meters, and 99% of the single space meters - a move towards a future where no physical parking infrastructure is required.
TIBA Parking Systems and ADEXUS, a leading company in IT services and solutions, join forces to deliver world-class parking access and revenue control systems (PARCS) to South America. Headquartered in Chile, ADEXUS will expand the TIBA network in South America.
With 27 years of experience, ADEXUS’ highly trained and certified professionals deliver reliable solutions to exceed clients’ expectations. “ADEXUS will make a powerful addition to TIBA’s VAR network because of their proven track record with customer experience and quality of service. Their core values of quality, innovation, and reliability truly align with our values, and I know we will be able to give our customers a high level of service, in addition to a great product, as TIBA begins to expand into South America,” said Jon Bowsher, President of TIBA North and South America. In addition, TIBA Parking Systems welcomes Traffic & Safety Control Systems Inc. to its’ network of value-added-resellers (VARs). Traffic & Safety has served the Michigan parking industry as a full-service Parking Revenue and Access Control Systems (PARCS) provider since 1974. “Traffic and Safety has created market share dominance in the state of Michigan by being focused on the needs of their customers. Combining this customer first approach with the high-quality solutions offered by TIBA will allow our partnership to continue to support the Michigan market at an industry leading level,” shared Jon Bowsher
Propark America announced that David Horn has joined the company as the new regional vice president, overseeing the Jacksonville market and select near airport facilities within the company’s portfolio. “The southeast region is a challenging parking environment, so the right leadership is top priority for Propark,” said Propark’s President, Rick DiPietro. “David brings a tremendous amount of expertise in parking operations, team building and fueling profitability. He is a wonderful addition to our Parking Dream Team.” Propark America also announced that Drew Riley has joined the company as the new president of Winpark Management, LLC.
“Drew comes to us with a wealth of knowledge and experience in both operations and business development,” said Propark’s Chief Executive Officer, John Schmid. “He brings a diverse skill set as one of the newest members of our Parking Dream Team, and we’re looking forward to Winpark’s growth under his leadership.”
Chapman University is transforming its parking operation with the help of NuPark’s smart parking management solution. What started as a need for occupancy data has evolved into the realization of a full-featured enterprise system, including 34 license plate recognition (LPR) cameras that will provide real-time analytics and strengthen security for the 78-acre campus community. Among the innovative changes NuPark brings to the university will be the automation of many permitting and citation management processes that were previously done manually. The new system will feature a customer-friendly, online interface and provide ease-of-use for students, employees and visitors purchasing parking permits. Moreover, real-time parking occupancy data will be accessible to Chapman’s parking professionals from any device with a modern web browser and internet access.
Parkmobile, LLC and the City of Charleston announced today the launch of the Parkmobile app, which allows customers to use their mobile devices to pay for parking in the city. To use Parkmobile, customers can register for free through the app for iPhone, Android or online at parkmobile.com. After setting up their account, customers can immediately begin using the system with their registered mobile device. App users may also choose to receive a reminder prior to the expiration of their parking session, and if the maximum parking time has not been reached, parkers can even extend their time from the app. Enforcement officers will be able to see that a motorist has paid with Parkmobile using a wireless handheld device and the user’s license plate number. Additionally, multiple payment methods are offered through the app, including Masterpass, PayPal, Visa Checkout, Chase Pay, Parkmobile Wallet, and Apple Pay.
Passport has launched its citation management platform for the City of Asheville. The city, that expects to issue up to 20,000 citations this year, is upgrading its system to run congruent with its mobile pay platform, provided through PassportParking® since 2012. The new system will streamline the city’s citation management process providing more accuracy and convenience, integrating both the mobile pay and citation management systems together on the same platform. With Passport’s citation management platform, city enforcement officers can efficiently issue citations using wireless handheld devices and Bluetooth printers. Enforcement officers can also monitor parking, conduct digital chalking and upload pictures of violations in real time.
