News & Insights

Everybody wants to “go green” these days, and that includes the people you serve. For every Prius or Tesla that shows up on your streets, there surely are exponentially more denizens who are making other overtures toward living more environmentally-friendly lives. And it shouldn’t be surprising that these same individuals would like to see more eco-conscious, sustainable initiatives from their municipalities as well. The good news is most communities have gotten onto this bandwagon. It’s incredibly difficult to actually find examples of local governments that haven’t taken steps toward being more eco-conscious and sustainability-minded. This includes solar power initiatives, community gardens, city-wide composting programs, mandated recycling, watering schedules, and modern parking management solutions. New parking management solutions clean up your town Yes, the parking management solution your city chooses has an impact on how green your city or town actually is. A less sophisticated system seems pretty environmentally-conscious on the surface. Dropping coins in a meter, plopping a permit on a dashboard, or simple time restrictions seem relatively innocuous on the surface. However, these less sophisticated systems leave a lot to be desired from an ecological perspective. Enforcement in the just mentioned scenarios often relies on parking enforcement officers driving around in circles all day, idling for several minutes beside a vehicle, checking meters and dashboards or chalking tires. And then there’s more idling as a ticket is written up. Of course, this is all time consuming, so an officer is able to patrol only a relatively small area, which means that many officers are needed to cover all ground. Technologically fresh, contemporary parking management solutions are quite an improvement in these regards. The technology utilized in these modern setups may vary, but each present an opportunity to be greener. Current parking management software, particularly the technology associated with pay by plate, may be the ticket to greater sustainability for a city. License plate recognition technology, electric vehicles, mobile technology, and e-chalking can enable an officer to very quickly determine parking rights. No idling is needed because the vehicle doesn’t need to stop as it captures plates to be enforced. It’s also all very efficient, which means one enforcement officer can cover more ground, so there are fewer vehicles on the road, if vehicles are even needed! These solutions are lightweight, so an officer can go on foot or utilize a personal transportation device. If a citation does need to be issued, a nearby parking enforcement officer dedicated to issuing citations can be dispatched. Then the information can be filled in automatically and printed out—again, less idling. And the ticket that’s printed? These citations are smaller than their manual counterparts, which means less paper is used. The best part? These are only a few examples of how contemporary parking solutions and parking technology can help your community’s sustainability efforts. Depending on how you structure your parking system, you could engineer a perfect world scenario that is highly efficient, uses little energy, and produces almost no waste. Better parking management makes everyone’s lives easier The concept is about more than conserving resources and generating clean energy. Thinking more broadly, “going green” is about making our lives better on a daily basis, both now and into the future. It’s really a quality of life issue. This is most true for municipalities with active downtowns that handle lots of commuters and visitors. Here, current parking management software and a modern system can help make the parking and driving experience more enjoyable. These encourage better traffic flow and more consistent enforcement, which saves time, money, and resources for both drivers and authorities. Depending on the options making up the solution, any number of enhancements can be seen. There are innovative solutions which offer drivers opportunities to take care of their parking needs ahead of time, for instance. Paying in advance lets drivers go straight to an assigned spot or lot with no need for cruising around, burning fuel. Time is saved by not needing to search for a spot, and money is saved by avoiding fines. But if a citation is issued, handling is much easier, with fail safes like human error correction embedded in our current technology. All in all, these improvements make for a much more pleasant experience. Greater efficiency = going green Efficiency is the name of the game here. New solutions allow visitors and commuters to spend more time enjoying life and less time worrying about parking, while being more environmentally-kind in the process. These systems also guarantee better revenue and improve the experience for enforcement officials when doing their jobs. For cities and municipalities that make sustainability and “going green” local points of emphasis, a forward-thinking parking management solution can be an important component in achieving their broader overall goal. One such parking management solution is pay by plate. Read our recent white paper to find out how the transition to it might work for your municipality: hbspt.cta.load(154767, 'b9e99a93-7da5-445d-8181-90449d71f83d', {});

What will your transition to pay by plate look like? So what will a pay by plate parking management system look like in an ideal scenario? We’ve created a download to help you put it all together. As you go about planning for your transition to pay by plate, it’s important to know all of the facts at hand. This includes exploring how this will impact your organization–including in terms of parking-generated revenue and discovering any challenges by carrying out a complete comprehensive system assessment. Once you know how to get there, however, you probably want to know what the transition to pay by plate will look like once it’s complete. It’s also helpful to have a guide as to what you need to implement laid out for you. Our downloadable checklist can help! Submit your email address below to access it: hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "154767", formId: "c04915e3-9e36-40ef-85fa-e0a51e51f2b4" });

Prep for pay by plate As you plan for your transition to a pay by plate parking system, it’s imperative you understand the full scope of situation. This includes examining both parking management systems: what you’re working with now and what you want to see in place once the transition is complete. Transitioning to pay by plate parking isn't always a linear path. Because of this, we’ve released “The Facts of the Matter" to set you up for pay by plate success. This downloadable sheet should provide you with some insight around what obstacles may stand between you and a pay by plate implementation. Submit your email address below to access it instantly. hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: "154767", formId: "2c13c2cb-195a-40a1-b8e4-befe79ddeb91" });

Parking enforcement software solutions for parking management agencies have been historically dominated by Microsoft operating systems like Windows CE and Windows Embedded Handheld. As end-users expect their work devices and applications to look and function like personal devices, application developers have recently begun looking for viable alternatives. Google Android is being watched closely, mainly due to the benefits of Android OS in the consumer smartphone market to enhance user experience. Both end-users and application developers have recently begun looking for a viable alternative. Google Android has emerged as the OS that most businesses and developers are evaluating primarily due to its popularity in the consumer smartphone market and the following several reasons: More and more parking managers expect e-ticketing software solutions to include the same user experience as consumer smartphones. The ease-of-adoption lowers the training costs associated with deployment, especially among younger workers. In general, one of the main benefits of Android OS is that it is considered more modern and optimized for touch applications. Enterprises are looking to develop applications that may be provisioned to their employees and also offered directly to consumers on their own devices. Some developers feel that it is faster to develop applications for Google Android The Android Market Place has hundreds of thousands of applications that may be helpful for end-users in day-to-day activities and also provides a new route to market for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). Some companies are simply frustrated with Microsoft and don’t see a clear roadmap beyond Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5. The demand for the new generation of mobile is a strong indicator that the market is dictating a new direction for commercial devices. What follows are only a few of the Android OS benefits in parking management, along with best practices and considerations when evaluating the most talked about issue when it comes to the new mobile revolution: security. New innovations are being developed that mean when it comes to parking enforcement, Android OS is not only a viable e-ticketing solution, but a more affordable one. Thus, it opens the doors for smaller government agencies, including parking enforcement and police agencies, with modest budgets to easily transition to an Android software solution for parking management needs. Device management considerations for the IT professional  There are number of OEM device management solutions emerging for the rapidly growing Android commercial market that greatly reduce the work and effort needed by IT support personnel to deploy and manage devices with an Android operating system. Below are some considerations when managing your fleet of Android devices: Root-access There are number of OEM device management solutions emerging for the rapidly growing Android commercial market that greatly reduce the work and effort needed by IT support personnel to deploy and manage devices with an Android operating system. Below are some considerations when managing your fleet of Android devices: By locking users into a kiosk mode or locking down menus it is possible to prevent users from changing device settings and getting root access. Best practices can be implemented such as setting up protocol to detect devices that have been rooted and take pre-defined actions to respond to this risk by removing the device from the corporate network or locking it down. Managing permissions, applications and mobile malware There are several ways to tackle issues related to applications and malware. First, by offering a kiosk mode end-users can be locked into an environment where they are unable to access, for example, the Internet or mobile market places. Additionally, certain hardware features can be disabled such as Bluetooth, phone, or Wi-Fi. These settings can be applied both on individual user and group level. IT managers can create lists of allowed and not-allowed applications and also monitor applications installed on devices and silently removing them if needed. Privacy When deploying units, the IT department can enable global settings that can, for example, prevent the use of GPS altogether or limit which applications can access the GPS information. Similarly a list of allowed applications can be used to tackle privacy issues. Lost or stolen devices IT departments can wipe, kill, and pull data from stolen or lost devices. In addition, measures can be used to enforce the use of complex passwords that will make it difficult to take advantage of a lost or stolen device. Managing Exchange ActiveSync Environments Control email authentication to the email authentication by verifying the actual device so the user will not be able to receive email from non-trusted devices until admin grants permission. Similarly, IT administration can enforce the requirement that users must be enrolled before they can access their corporate email. Should a greater level of Exchange Email control be desired, there are many third-party solutions to compliment this environment allowing for advanced configuration of Exchange Email settings and a configurable sandbox where corporate email settings can be enforced and data loss prevented. Remote installation Quickly and easily create packages of software/data that can be deployed to mobile devices. Automatically execute and process other types of files on the mobile device. In addition, users have the option of adding scripts that get automatically executed at various points during the installation or uninstallation of the package. Wireless internet and unprotected networks IT managers can create, edit and delete configuration profiles including initial configuration like Wireless ZeroConfig, SummitWireless settings, Fusion settings, Devicescape Wireless settings, Static IP, Cellular connection (APN) Settings. Data storage It is recommended that the ISVs rely on application level encryption. It is also possible to enforce the use of complex passwords that will prevent hackers from accessing stored data in case a device is lost or stolen. hbspt.cta.load(154767, '16bc281e-a815-4760-912c-cf1bdd45c683', {});