Over and Under 60 - Experience Gives its Opinion

September, 2021

The New: Treating Parking as a Resource

Parking is a precious resource which, in a lot of cases, is left untouched and hidden from many busy commuters. 

Leaving these spaces vacant, empty, and desolate most of the day is an alarming waste of resources that could otherwise be put to better use and, as a practice, is certainly not sustainable. But do commuters know that there are actually empty spaces nearby? 

There is a definite need for hardware and software to work together simultaneously to solve many parking problems.

I started a “Smart Parking” company in college, in collaboration with my co-founder, whom I met in class. Our first homework assignment was to think of a problem to solve. We chose parking. This was not long ago. Actually, we came up with the idea five years ago. 

Now, coming into this industry as a “newbie”, I got to study what parking looks like and think of new and innovative ways to solve the problems of parking for operators. I honestly thought that the industry was outdated.

At the time, around 2018, it seemed as if the industry was trying to go completely to software and eliminate the need for hardware to solve parking issues. The SaaS model and no hardware was the money maker. Now, in 2021, I do not think that is the case anymore. 

I have been in the industry for almost five years now and the technology definitely moves quickly. With the few innovations over the past years, I believe that combining accurate hardware with new innovative software, in a more granular sense, will drive the parking industry to new levels. I see new technologies like LPR and IoT Pucks, associated with Big Data, as a need in parking and leading the way in making parking operations a more data-driven and sustainable operation.

There is a definite need for hardware and software to work together simultaneously to solve many parking problems. Without new hardware, parking data will be obsolete and inaccurate. Likewise, without new innovative software, the hardware has no face and is also obsolete. But this isn’t the only part of it. 

This outdated industry is changing quickly and it’s extremely important to understand all of the different verticals and customers within it and how they too are changing. Each parking operator and associated parking operation has their own set of problems. Whether it’s capital resources, COVID recovery, or turnover, it is not about trying to get one new technology to solve all of these problems, but for all sorts of new technologies to work together seamlessly and solve these many problems. 

From universities, hospitals, to cities, it is extremely important to know how certain technologies may work, may not work, or even may work together to solve the parking problems. Who knows, we may just solve the cycle of parking. 

Mathew Magno is definitely under 60. He is CEO and Co-Founder of JAPA, Inc. He can be reached at mathewmagno@japa.one