How to improve the parking experience with mobility solutions

The experience of any customer who commutes by private transportation begins in the parking facility. Shopping centers, hospitals and condominium complexes tend to offer parking facilities for the people who use their own vehicles to get there. These vehicle parking places are the starting point for the customer journey, and as such, have become a key element of it. That is why boosting the parking experience has become so important in recent times, and is now one of the most relevant factors to consider in customer satisfaction.

In a world where automation and ease of use have become so significant, parking areas should feature optimal convenience and simplicity for customers and end users. In other words, enhancing the parking experience. It can be a real challenge to keep parking in a downtown area from turning into a headache.

The idea of leaving your car in a private parking facility usually conjures up visions of long lines, traffic and stress. But if you know that the place you’re going to park your vehicle is equipped with features to make parking a pleasant experience, it’s a different story.

How can you enhance drivers’ parking experience?

There are a number of actions that a parking facility owner can take to raise the satisfaction of customers who park there. For example, you can enhance the parking experience by allowing users to reserve their parking space on-line, and take minimal time to leave their car in the facility.

It is also possible to install signage to guide drivers to available spaces in a user-friendly, dynamic way, or help them find their vehicle quickly with car kiosks that use the vehicles’ license plate number to indicate their location. Other ways to add to the parking experience are avoiding heavy traffic inside the facilities, as well as lines at entrances and that drivers touch the least possible number of surfaces.

Parking user experience with a parking management system, step by step

Quercus Technologies’ comprehensive parking solutions empower parking facility operators to manage and process parking space reservations through their websites. Properly configured, the software can even stream parking capacity and availability in real time. This way, a specific license plate number can be linked to a reserved stay, applying a certain price, or special discount rate.

If the user has reserved a stay, when they enter the facility, access will be automatic thanks to the license plate recognition by the LPR camera at the entrance, as well as in the parking space, using camera-based parking sensors for the parking space guidance. Alarms can also be set to go off if a vehicle with a different license plate number parks in a reserved space.

Once the user is at the entrance, touchless, barrier-free access is possible thanks to the SmartLPR Access vehicle license plate recognition unit, installed in the access lanes. The license plate recognition unit reads the user number, and either prints out a ticket with the license number on it, or in the case of a ticketless solution, saves the license number in the parking facility system and is later retrieved for payment without using any paper.

Once inside the parking facility, digital parking signs show availability of spaces in rows, or changes of direction or floor, to optimize the user experience and expedite parking times. These matrix information displays are completely customizable with fixed or dynamic messages, and instructions for drivers with information that can be relevant to them. These signs also indicate parking space availability in outdoor areas thanks to the SC Outdoor video based parking guidance system. This solution saves users from entering these areas if it is not possible to park in them.

Parking sensors use a color code to indicate whether parking spaces are free, occupied or of a certain class: blue for users with disabilities, pink for families, green for electric vehicles, and so on. Once parked, vehicles benefit from the security of video surveillance of each space provided by the SC Indoor parking guidance system, and easy location thanks to license plate recognition that is also applied to each of the parking spaces.

For users to find their parked cars when they return to the parking facility, the parking experience can be upgraded with car kiosks to locate the vehicle by simply entering the license number, or with an on-screen reminder of its location when drivers are paying for their stay.

In short, there are many options that can be installed and configured within a comprehensive, fully-integrated parking solution. Every parking facility is different; owners will have different needs depending on their unique characteristics. From the entire range of products and solutions, what matters most is to get the highest performance from the facility, bring more to the user experience and, as a result, enjoy greater financial yields from the parking operation.