At Passport, we’re dedicated to serving our clients (all 1,000 of them!) and providing solutions for managing and controlling the curb. To create the best possible products, we need to stay on top of trends in our industry. Last year, we identified four trends we thought we’d hear a lot about in 2019. Now, we’re excited to share our predictions for 2020 about the hot topics in our ever-changing industry.

Utilizing connected cars for curbside compliance

The vehicle as a form of payment is no longer just an idea. The global market for connected cars is expected to grow by 270% by 2022, making cars another piece of the connected commerce ecosystem. 16.7% of commuters use in-dash capabilities to transact on everything from their daily cup of coffee to a trip to the gas station. That number will only continue to rise. You can apply this same thought to parking as well. We see a future where a driver can find, park, and pay for a parking session using a mobile app or directly through their connected vehicle powered by an end-to-end digital platform that manages rules, rates and restrictions of individual cities.  

By integrating your rates, rules, and restrictions into cars, you gain control of your curbside in a new way. You can apply that same strategy to everything that moves and fights for valuable curb space. By leveraging the same set of rules, rates, and restrictions that parkers adhere to, apps like Uber and Lyft, scooters, and emerging delivery vehicles such as Prime vans and Grub Hub drivers, could be required to integrate into the same end-to-end platform and pay for the time they spend at the curb. This will allow cities to take control of their curb, better manage compliance, and ultimately monetize the valuable space. In 2020, Passport will be investing in new and innovative ways to integrate different third-party vendors, like the ones mentioned above, to cities’ back-end systems to improve curbside compliance.

Data standardization for a connected world

As innovation accelerates, technology enhancements for various parts of the mobility ecosystem, including mobile pay parking, parking payments, and parking enforcement, are coexisting but not necessarily cooperating. Each maintains a data silo that makes it very difficult for the city to view their mobility environment holistically and even more difficult to add new capabilities or adapt to new challenges.

To effectively manage the evolving mobility ecosystem, city managers need a centralized tool to power and organize multiple technologies by standardizing how information and funds flow into and out of their operation. Passport contributes to entities like the Alliance for Parking Data Standards (APDS) who are creating a consensus-built international data standards. This will establish a common language for data elements and definitions in the parking, transportation, and mobility sector. By incorporating data standards, cities can facilitate seamless integration, compatibility, and communication between parking entities, the automotive industry, IT developers, map and app providers, and other stakeholders.

Improving the customer experience

By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in a city. With the influx of people, cities need to leverage technology in order to create safe, liveable, and equitable communities and drive economic growth. A key benefit of this technology is that it will create more positive experiences for the customer – people who live and work in cities. 

Cities need to consider customer needs as they adopt new technology. Instead of asking customers to download a new app or change their behavior, cities should think about implementing solutions that meet customers where they already are. Last month, Passport announced its vision for the future of parking payments, which gives cities the ability to enable parking payments in a number of applications and experiences. This could mean paying to park through a car’s infotainment system, in a mapping or coffee app, or through a fleet vehicle system. This has benefits for the customer, but it also helps cities increase payment compliance, leading to better control of the curb and vehicles that are parked there.

Cities become asset-light and digitally-driven

Today, parking management is siloed and disconnected. Parking, enforcement and payments are coexisting, but not always communicating. Hardware is expensive and difficult to maintain. This lack of coordination between systems makes it difficult for a city to view its parking environment comprehensively and even more difficult to adapt to changes and technological enhancements. 

In 2020, we expect to see a huge digital shift in the mobility space. Cities will begin to adopt a standardized platform to manage all aspects of mobility. This will enable cities to measure, manage, and scale their entire parking ecosystem from one single source of truth. With a digital parking environment, cities will:

• Increase operator visibility
• Simplify future integrations
• Open the door for new partnerships
• Cut down on hardware costs

By leveraging a mobility platform, a city will be able to prepare itself to manage the demands of tomorrow’s mobility ecosystem and make room for innovation without increasing complexity.