parking & mobility technology buyer’s guide

Parking & Mobility Technology

Buyer’s Guide: Procuring for an end-to-end mobility software solution

| Parking Management Buyer’s Guide3 www.passportinc.com

Today’s Challenge: Meeting the Demands of an Evolving Parking Ecosystem Today, parking management is chaotic. Technology

enhancements for enforcement systems, mobile payments,

pay stations, off-street reservations, sensors, financial

reconciliation systems, PARCS equipment, and business

intelligence abound — coexisting but not cooperating. Each

maintains a data silo that makes it very difficult for cities to

understand critical patterns in occupancy, compliance, and

financial performance. Ensuring data is maintained and

updated across multiple systems is often a manual and time

consuming process, leading to unnecessary costs and labor

burdens.

This has resulted in an existing technology ecosystem that

cannot be effectively coordinated, and the idea of

incorporating any future technology into a city’s parking

management portfolio likely seems daunting. Taking

deliberate steps to foster innovation, cooperation, flexibility,

and standardization in parking technology infrastructure

can significantly decrease this burden and will result in

significant benefits in operational consistency:

• Eliminating duplicative costs and simplifying

integrations,

• Understanding parker behavior through data,

• Enabling and accelerating innovation, and

• Future-proofing for what lies ahead in micro-mobility,

rideshare and autonomous vehicles.

To effectively manage the evolving parking ecosystem, city

managers need a centralized tool to power and organize

multiple technologies by standardizing how information

flows into and out of their operation.


Centralizing Parking Management Through an End-to-End, Digital Platform

A platform is technology infrastructure that standardizes

how components of your existing infrastructure

communicate with one another, increasing operator

visibility, simplifying future integrations, and empowering a

city to measure, manage, and control its entire parking

ecosystem from a single source.

Measure: Centralized Data, Analytics and Insights.

Aggregating parking data in a single real-time system can

reduce the time, complexity, and expense of measuring

financial and operational patterns, and allows parking

operators to understand and predict:

• Occupancy

• Demand

• Revenue

• Compliance

Additionally, by aggregating all relevant data streams and

providing a single unified data access point for

enforcement, invoicing, and accounting systems, operators

can alleviate the complexity of transmitting data between

vendors.

In order to ensure that this type of system maximizes the

value of storing and analyzing an operator’s aggregated

parking data set, the procurement process should include

the following requirements:

• All session data. The vendor should allow export of all

session data in a common format (CSV, Excel, etc).

• Real-time reporting. The vendor should be able to

report on session activity in real time across all

connected systems.


Manage: Rates, Rules and Restrictions. Consistency in

rates and rules across parking technologies minimizes the

revenue impact of incorrect rates and prevents the

administrative burden associated with refunding customers

that were incorrectly charged. By creating a single source of

rates and rules, parking managers can eliminate

inconsistencies across payment options made available.

In order to ensure that the parking system can perform the

critical function of providing the rate and rule engine of

record for all parking transactions, the following product

requirements should be incorporated into the

procurement process:

• Quantity of transactions. The vendor’s rate engine

must have been used to calculate parking rates for a

significant amount of parking transactions in recent

years, for example, at least ten million parking

transactions for each of the past three years.

• Quantity of supported operations. The vendor’s rate

engine should be in use in at least 50 different parking

operations to ensure it can support a variety of

progressive and dynamic rate policies.

• API-based. The vendor’s rate engine should be API-

based and accessible from any internet-connected

device (API-based), and should be able to provide

accurate current and future rates.

• Testing and verification. The vendor’s rate engine

should include a rate tester for easy verification that

rates are configured correctly.

Control: Session Generator. A digital mobility platform

should provide the technical infrastructure and tools to

standardize the definition and creation of a parking session

in any application or system generating that session.

Creating a parking session involves collecting and

transmitting consistent information about each paid

parking session, including data like:

• Location

• Start time

• End time, and

• License plate or space number

The system converts that data into a session record with a

consistent format that can be conveyed to parking

enforcement systems and a database of record for

processing and analysis. Centralizing the session creation

function ensures that session data is consistent and

interoperable across any network of parking payment

vendors or third-party applications, and is conveyed

consistently to parking enforcement systems and the

parking operator’s data clearinghouse.

Beyond Parking: Modernizing Curb Management Cities and parking operators must effectively deploy

technology to improve today’s parking operations, but

parking is merely the first example of a more complex

trend: mobility and curbside management.

As cities become more dense and develop more complex

mobility ecosystems, demand for curb space will

dramatically rise. As a result, municipal parking authorities

may be forced to regulate a diverse set of curbside

activities, including:

• Rideshare pickups and dropoffs

• Commercial loading zones

• Scooters

• Commuter parking, and

• General fleet distribution

Therefore, cities must begin laying the infrastructure that

will allow them to effectively regulate this valuable real

estate.

A centralized digital platform provides the flexibility to

coordinate a diverse curbside ecosystem. While new

curbside regulatory regimes will expand the number and

type of activities that occur along streets and sidewalks,

the three central components of transportation software

rely


upon the same infrastructure as today’s parking operations:

measuring data through collection and analysis (the data

clearinghouse), managing operations through consistent

rates and rules (the rate engine), and controlling the ability

to create a paid parking session (the session generator).

Today, creating a session involves opening a mobile

application, selecting a zone, and pressing a button. In the

future, a session may be created automatically based on

GPS data. The mechanism to create a session may change

to accommodate new curbside activity, but the underlying

infrastructure remains constant. So by purchasing a digital

platform, a city can simultaneously prepare itself to serve a

central function in managing the demands of tomorrow’s

mobility ecosystem.

This progression also highlights how a mobility platform

can establish a foundation for innovation without

sacrificing the control and consistency necessary to

coordinate the increasingly complex urban ecosystem.

Powered by a robust, extensible system, today’s parking

technology can scale quickly and reliably to meet

tomorrow’s challenges.

Imagine if parking sessions were created every time...

• An Uber driver stops to make a pickup at the

curbside, based on GPS location

• A taxi license plate is scanned as it drops off a

passenger,

• A FedEX truck parks to deliver in a commercial

loading zone, or

• A scooter is parked on a sidewalk.


Mitigating Risks While centralizing data, rates, session creation, and

reporting in a single system has massive benefits, it also

introduces new dependencies and risks: it introduces a

single point of operational failure, relies upon integrations

with a diverse vendor ecosystem, and increases the impact

of a data breach by increasing data centralization. These

risks are significant, but can be mitigated.

Single Point of Failure: A centralized system powers every

payment method, so downtime at the platform layer

makes it impossible to pay for parking through any

method. This has follow-on effects to parking enforcement

revenue and customer satisfaction. In order to mitigate

this risk, cities should require a platform to have:

• Rigorous uptime requirements consistent with

business-critical systems in other industries (99.999%

uptime)

• Proven ability to scale to a high transaction volume

without service interruption

• Performance that can support a variety of use cases

and fast response time at scale

Reliance On Integration Partners: Introduction of a

unifying platform requires tighter coordination of every

parking technology provider in a city, because every

vendor must either send data to or receive data from the

system in a predefined format, creating an

implementation risk. In order to mitigate this, the

technology must be simple to integrate, which can be

achieved by considering the following requirements:

• Well-documented, standards-based APIs that can be

implemented by a vendor with minimal involvement

from the platform provider

• Accessibility from any internet-connected device

through operator-approved software

• Minimal or non-existent integration fees for adding

new systems to the platform, regardless of vendor

Increased Impact Of Data Breaches: A single source

solution consolidates all operational and financial data into

one aggregated source. As a result, a data breach could

expose more sensitive data. In order to mitigate this risk,

the following data security and data control requirements

should be considered:

• Vendor employee background checks prior to their first

day of employment, in addition to vendor employee

security awareness training

• Vendor and client user access control levels

• Encryption at rest and in transit with at least AES-256

• Utilization of a tier 1 datacenter provider

• A copy of vendor data retention and information

security, and incident response plans and policies

• Verified SOC 1 and SOC 2 certifications

• Verified PCI-DSS Level 1 Compliance certified by 3rd

party

• Penetration testing by ethical, “white-hat” hackers

• A cyber-insurance policy with $5 million in coverage per

incident

• Indemnification of the city for insurance policy limits in

the event of a breach


Data and Security

Data should be used to support cities with innovative

mobility management solutions that improve parking

operations - and that’s it. Data ownership and privacy is an

extremely important aspect to understand when procuring

for any modern software solution, and cities must

understand the proper ways to protect the communities

they serve by ensuring their vendor:

• Always remains transparent about the data they collect

• Uses any data collected for the purposes of supporting

their clients in providing the best mobility solutions

possible to users

• Never sells personalized data to anyone, for any reason

• Has a system designed to keep data within a safe and

secure network

Ensuring Privacy & Security

Complying with data standards should always remain a top

priority and vendors should maintain certain certifications

with applicable industry and data standards to comply with

the laws and regulations concerning privacy and data

protection. This includes the California Consumer Privacy

Act (CCPA) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation

(GDPR), as well as all PCI and SSAE security standards. All

payment information should also be stored in a secure PCI

environment.

To further protect the security of data, reputable third-party

security testing and hacking prevention services should be

frequently used to continuously ensure that the measures

taken to protect data are effective.

Protecting Integrations

An end-to-end digital platform for parking management is

more than an app provider to cities and can integrate

partners through API connectors, which brings up more

questions and concerns around data. This software

serves as the facilitator of multiple applications (parking,

permits, citations) to provide cities with the intelligence that

helps them make informed decisions to improve their

mobility infrastructure.

The data collected through and end-to-end parking

management system enables cities to manage rates, rules,

and logic of their overall parking operations. In order to

deliver this value to the city, the system vendor should only

collect the necessary information needed from end-users.

Similarly, when transactions are facilitated by a third-party

integrated into the system, only the pertinent user

information from the third party is needed to complete

those transactions. The mobility system powering these

transactions should maintain the same data standards for

all data collected, regardless of the source.

User Data is User Choice

Information should only be collected when voluntarily

submitted by those who engage directly with the service.

For parking transactions, this means that data is only used

to administer and complete parking services.

Maintaining the privacy and security of user information

should be a top priority for any mobility software solution.

Pricing Pricing for a digital mobility platform should scale with the

volume of transactions created using the system. This

pricing principle aligns the cost of the system with a city’s

parking revenue and the complexity of its parking

technology ecosystem. As cities go out to bid for an end-to-

end solution, the following should be taken into

consideration:

• Avoid a “lowest responsible bidder” procurement

process. A bidder that intends to use their platform as

leverage in a future procurement can afford an

unsustainably low price under the assumption that they

will recoup their revenue under the subsequent


contract. A procurement process designed to emphasize

low price, dramatically increases the risk of selecting an

inconsistent and non-transparent bidder.

• Require consistent integration pricing. The city’s

solution should be built for low cost, low effort (open)

ecosystem integrations. Integration fees should,

therefore, be included for every city-approved

integration partner.

• Require transparent license fees. Per-session fees

should be equal across all payment methods. This

prevents the vendor from creating proprietary per-

session cost advantages in a subsequent procurement

by giving the city a “discount” on license fees.

• Require neutral license fees. Per-session fees should

be equal across all payment methods. This prevents the

vendor of the mobility platform from creating

proprietary per-session cost advantages in a subsequent

procurement by giving the city a “discount” on license

fees.

• Avoid vendor lock-in. By standardizing the inputs and

outputs across parking payment vendors, an end-to-end

mobility solution can massively reduce the costs and

pains of transition and addition of new technologies.

This is particularly important in high-capital expenditure

hardware procurements, where contracts are large and

infrequent enough to encourage anti-competitive

behavior.

Parking management today can be chaotic. But

implementing technology that will optimize a city’s parking

operation now and build a solid foundation for future

challenges is possible. If you have questions about utilizing

and end-to-end digital platform for mobility management,

contact us at [email protected].

parking & mobility technology buyer’s guide

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