Skyer: Use Technology to Maximize the Destination Experience

The next generation of parking and transit technology should incorporate local city and university apps, as well as complementary services such as Lyft, Uber, Ride Amigos, and Google Transit to improve the consumer experience and increase ridership and usage rates.

“Everything we do in parking and transit boils down to one very simple and straightforward concept: How Do I Maximize the Journey to Destination Experience?” Mitch Skyer, president of Passio Technologies, asked. “In other words, ‘I’ve got somewhere to go, so what’s the fastest, simplest, cheapest way for me to get there with the least amount of hassle?’”

During a presentation titled “The Bad News is Time Flies; The Good News is You are the Pilot” at this year’s International Parking Institute (IPI) 2017 Conference in New Orleans, Skyer shared his perspective about how administrators who operate parking and transit systems can tackle these challenges directly.

Technology in transit and parking takes on many forms. Starting with on board or on site hardware, operational technology that tracks passenger load, on-time performance, lot and deck counts, utilization, turnover and parking and passenger trends. Customer applications provide instant feedback on parking availability, estimated time of arrival for bus service, customer feedback and direct alerts or messages.

“The ‘Smart City’ concept includes networked devices and sensors that report on traffic, weather, maintenance items, and external factors will provide instant data to technology applications,” Skyer said. “Future technology concepts are coming quickly. Driverless cars and buses will revolutionize the Destination Experience by changing the way we think about moving and monitoring people when they travel.”

“Crowdsourcing will impact the shared transit experience. Think of Waze for buses, where we can influence and optimize each other’s behavior by collectively sharing what happens to us,” Skyer said. “This type of data can revolutionize the way schedules and routes are built and help to optimize decisions for parking development and managing parking behavior.”