The idea that parking is an action reserved for cars is outdated. And our streets, curbsides, and driveways have already moved past it.
The parking lot is next.
The Multimodal Mobility Ecosystem
The profusion of devices and services to take us from point A to B means that navigating urban areas an experience most often shared with more than one mode of movement. Even within individual trips, we often use more than one device or service – using public transport or a car and then hopping on a scooter or bike to go the last mile.
An accurate picture of urban mobility today would be a collage of cars, shared vehicles, public transports, delivery fleets, and micromobilty. And although cars may dominate that picture today, their reign isn’t sure to last forever.
Access is Imperative
We share our streets with rideshare drivers, our curbs with delivery trucks, and our driveways with bikes and scooters. But there’s something that separates these spaces from garages, which is why we have yet to see diversity in the occupants of our garages and lots.
If we want to break down the barrier to our garages, we’ll have to lift what stands between them: the gate.
Access control is a critical part of our transition towards multi-use hubs of mobility. Introducing smart parking solutions is a critical step in pursuing mobility hub concepts. When garages can accept scooters or electric vehicles the same way they accept cars, there will be nothing left to impede access for alternative mobility.
So how can garages entice those modes to utilize garages the same way cars do? They’ll have to achieve variety: parking plus services like EV charging, scooter docking, logistics lockers, and fleet management. When alternative modes of mobility have access to a wealth of value within garages, with no barriers to keep them out, a new age of profitability and sustainability will begin for parking assets, their owners, and their operators.
Technology Puts the “Smart” in Smart Asset Management
Unlocking a more dynamic position in the marketplace starts with achieving equal access for the growing pool of mobility modes. But the technology used to bring consumers into mobility hub is critical. Having a smart parking system is the first step.
Then, it’s all about leveraging that future-ready technology to get ahead of trends, capture market share, and ultimately grow and diversify your revenue.
Key capabilities to use to your advantage:
- Mobile Management: More offerings means more to manage; choosing a cloud-architected system delivers that high-level oversight, remote management capabilities, and the ability to respond with real-time changes.
- Business Intelligence: Data-based decision making is the new standard in any industry. Don’t let your parking operation fall behind.
- Innovation/Development Timeline: Investing in solutions to support your new mobility initiative should involve looking down the line. If you’re buying into a partnership, what will the provider’s suite of offerings look like in five or ten years?
- Network and relationships: What other entities does this partnership give you access to? And how can those in your now extended network directly impact your bottom line?
Mobility Hub Concepts
What will the parking industry look like when we finally let ourselves into the broader world of mobility rather than the isolated company of cars? There’s a certain utopian vision of smart cities that still feels a bit out of touch. But becoming a mobility hub doesn’t have to be such a huge leap from where we are today; it’s just about approaching parking from a new perspective.
Parking garages have traditionally met a singular demand in the mobility ecosystem: cars. But the market today is much bigger than that; it includes eScooter riders, rideshare drivers, and delivery drivers among many others. When we shift our perspective of who the target market is by expanding the pool of potential customers, there’s more money to be made.
More potential customers, more value being offered to them, more opportunities for you. That’s how simple it is.
So while you daydream about the city on a hill — don’t lose sight of that ideal world – but remember that the mobility hub is a model for the world we live in today, too.
Ready to shift the way you approach your business?
The Parking Paradigm ebook dives into the science of our industry’s forward movement and teaches you how to capitalize on it with one simple shift.
