How to Begin Creating Smart Communities through Parking and Mobility Programs and Operations

Excerpted from Parking & Mobility journal, by Tom Szubka, CAPP and Tania Schleck

Smart has been coming quick at us for the final a number of years and perhaps quicker by the pandemic. Yet, it appears some cities, communities, and enormous establishments have a tough time maintaining. We know “smart” has come to the parking and mobility world, nevertheless, there are locations nonetheless utilizing “old-fashioned” parking meters and gathering money with a cigar field.

Smart might be merely acknowledged as how nicely you employ what you will have.

The instruments we use in a sensible neighborhood are usually not inherently good, however the system or customers can grow to be good with the correct use of the instruments and knowledge they generate. With expertise enhancing knowledge gathering and communication, communities have to carry all of it collectively. 

A sensible neighborhood…

• makes use of data and communication applied sciences.
• understands the potential of data expertise.
• makes use of gadgets and functions to create new experiences or providers.
• make a acutely aware determination to make use of expertise.

…as a method to (goal)…

• remodel life and work in important and constructive methods.
• enhance each the standard of presidency providers and citizen welfare.
• facilitate operational effectivity.
• optimize the circulation of vitality, folks, and knowledge.

While there isn’t a sole definition of a sensible metropolis/neighborhood/campus, it might probably typically be deduced that the purpose is to easily Make Life Better.

The utilization of expertise and knowledge crosses all industries and providers comprising a neighborhood. The integration and multi-disciplinary sharing of expertise, knowledge, and sources promote extra environment friendly and efficient use of all three to enhance the providers and experiences of the neighborhood. Smart options make life higher from a wide range of views: transactional, motion, storage, curb administration, aggregation, planning, and effectivity. 

Cities are utilizing expertise to plan their infrastructure extra successfully.

• Chicago has a sensible lighting program the place they’re altering out 270,000 streetlights to LED lighting outfitted with clever controls which make the lights keep dim when no vehicles or individuals are round and lightweight up once they detect somebody is coming. This will save the town an estimated $10 million per yr in vitality prices.
• New York City deployed good trash and recycling stations in Times Square with built-in compaction, fullness sensing and assortment notification. Total trash capability elevated by nearly 200% and 50% much less time was spent gathering bins. The bins additionally elevated the recycling fee—40% of public waste was being recycled, up from 15%.
• New digital channels for the general public to speak with native officers might make cities extra responsive. New York City, Austin, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Toronto have shifted 311 non-emergency service requests to cellular apps. 

Smart metropolis options have improved the best way we transfer by offering us with extra good mobility choices.

• Transportation Network Companies comparable to Uber and Lyft make it faster and extra handy to guide rides utilizing a smartphone. For Uber alone, 6.9 billion journeys had been accomplished in 2019.
• Micromobility options comparable to dockless scooters and bike shares allow folks to guide with a smartphone app. These options might be notably useful in offering first-mile/final mile connections and to assist folks flow into round sure land makes use of comparable to faculty campuses.
• Microtransit depends on smartphone apps or different expertise platforms for experience requests and routing particulars. The app-based strategy permits operators to match requests to routes and obtainable autos in real-time. Microtransit can fill gaps within the transit service community, comparable to in rural areas missing the inhabitants density needed for fixed-route service, or it might probably function a first-last mile service to high-frequency transit.

The curb has quite a few calls for, together with parking, industrial deliveries, TNC pick-up/drop-offs, meals supply providers, shared bikes and scooters, and outside neighborhood areas. Smart expertise options assist cities extra successfully plan for and handle their curb with stock, utilization, and visualizing their present mixture of curb makes use of and rules. Video analytics, mapping, and smartphone app-based applied sciences assist with knowledge seize, processing, and visualization by capturing curb exercise. 

When communities can “bring it all together,” extra complete and sturdy options grow to be obtainable, broadening the attraction and expertise of neighborhood life.

Data is how the information and expertise of a neighborhood is expressed, making knowledge the foreign money of any good neighborhood. How knowledge it’s gathered, communicated, and utilized is de facto the essence of what constitutes a sensible neighborhood. The “smart” infrastructure supplies the method and instruments that acquire the information, course of the information into usable codecs, talk the information, and analyze the information. 

All of which turns into a perpetual suggestions loop when choices makers use the analyzed knowledge to make life higher for its residents.

Read the article in full and access related resources here. 

Tom Szubka, CAPP

Senior Consultant | Walker Consultants

Thomas Szubka, CAPP, is a Senior Consultant with Walker Consultants.

Tania Schleck

Parking and Mobility Consultant | Walker Consultants

Tania Schleck is a Parking and Mobility Consultant with Walker Consultants.

Related Resources

Parking & Mobility Leaders Drive Technology and Innovation to Meet Greater Community Goals: Sustainability, Efficiency, and Smart Transportation Systems

#IPMI2023 showcases our high ten business leaders debuting new and enhanced expertise, merchandise, and providers on the 2023 IPMI Parking & Mobility Conference & Expo this June in Fort Worth, Texas.  Get to know our Top Ten Strategic Partners here, and explore the hundreds of exhibitors offering the latest in parking and mobility tech.  

About the annual IPMI Parking & Mobility Conference & Expo

The IPMI Parking & Mobility Conference & Expo brings collectively professionals representing each degree of expertise and section of the parking, transportation, and mobility business. The occasion delivers 4 days of outstanding schooling, the most important show of parking- and mobility-specific expertise and improvements, networking, and the chance to attach with a worldwide neighborhood. 

About IPMI

The International Parking & Mobility Institute (IPMI) is the world’s largest affiliation of execs in parking, transportation, and mobility — professionals who maintain all of us transferring. IPMI works to advance the parking and mobility occupation by means of skilled improvement, analysis and knowledge assortment, advocacy, and outreach.