Making spaces for digital innovation

This article is written by Dr Kate Harrington, Head of Strategic Digital Initiatives, New South Wales (NSW) Department of Customer Service.

• The problem: Increasing urban and suburban population density is putting a strain on parking availability and conflicting priorities for curb usage.
• Why it matters: A liveable city needs to provide inclusive opportunities for all citizens to access core services, green and public spaces, and efficient transportation networks.
• The solution: A single mobile application (app), used across administrative boundaries, supported by smart infrastructure to enable customers to optimise their “place” experience.

Having a single app for customers to find and pay for parking is a truly citizen-focused approach.

The NSW Government has been working with Local Government Authorities (LGAs) to address the challenge of providing a seamless, digital solution to ease traffic congestion and manage parking availability on a state-wide basis. Having a single app for customers to find and pay for parking is a truly citizen-focused approach, with the alternative being that each LGA creates its own app, and customers are forced to install multiple apps to park in different LGAs.

A workshop was held with invited representatives from 30 LGAs in the Sydney Metropolitan Area. When asked what barriers they faced to introducing smart infrastructure, they identified: lack of funding; customer sentiment in terms of the potential for surveillance use; lack of coordination between jurisdictions; technical compatibility and complexity of the parking and enforcement ecosystem, to which the smart infrastructure is only a small part.

The NSW Government addressed these challenges by creating a grant programme for LGAs under the Digital Restart Fund supporting investment in smart infrastructure. Grants were made available for the total cost of installation and maintenance of smart infrastructure supporting accessible, on-street parking spaces for a period of three years. LGAs were also provided with a procurement guide to assist them in selecting the most cost-effective and compatible solution to integrate with the mobile app.

The benefits of this programme fall into five key areas:

    1. 	Increase in convenience & safety for customers

Using the mobile app means that customers have no need to carry cash or touch parking meters to pay with a credit card for metered parking spaces. All payments can be made within the app, and if permitted, parking can be topped up remotely without needing to return to the vehicle or meter.

The mobile app also sends an alert to the driver to inform them when their parking is about to expire, or when conditions associated with the parking space are due to change.

    2. 	Reduction in carbon emissions

The use of a mobile app which provides real-time data reduces the time customers spend driving around looking for a parking space, reducing emissions and increasing customer satisfaction.

    3. 	Supporting citizens with special mobility needs

Using a private vehicle for transportation is particularly important for customers with limited mobility, who may find using public transport challenging. Commencing a pilot programme addressing parking spaces for customers with accessibility parking permits benefits customers with high need and demonstrates the value of the approach for wider utility.

    4. 	Increased revenue

Enforcement officers have limited time and lots of ground to cover. Early adopters have reported that using the mobile app to identify illegal parking, i.e. parking in an accessible space without a permit, or overstaying in paid parking spaces meant that deployment of enforcement officers could be more efficient, and accuracy improved over traditional methods of visible detection such as ‘chalking tyres’ to determine compliance.

    5. 	Allowing for dynamic responsiveness

The deployment of smart infrastructure to determine the occupancy of a parking space is only a first step in the creation of smart places. Dynamic signage associated with the insights available from parking data will allow for flexible curb usage solutions which can be changed according to demands. For example, more accessible parking spaces could be dynamically established, time limits for free or paid parking could be adapted depending on times and days, or clear ways could be established.

Recommendations

Before investing in smart infrastructure, determine:

• Whether there are any existing providers contracted to manage parking (sensors / meters / enforcement) within the jurisdiction. Bringing in an additional provider may breach contract conditions or create additional overheads.
• Connectivity availability–whether cellular coverage, or wifi connections are available within the location. The available connection options will determine what smart infrastructure solutions are appropriate and cost effective.
• What budget will be needed to support areas where smart infrastructure is being installed for the first time. Additional investment will be required to connect sensors or cameras to the required gateways, hubs, relay stations, cellular or wifi networks.
• The best solution based on the geographic distribution of parking spaces and their location in regard to one another. For example, a single camera may be able to support up to five parking spaces, if they are adjacent to each other and ‘rear to curb’ rather than parallel or angled to the curb.
• The topography of the area will also determine whether some wifi or radio-frequency identification (RFID) options can be connected.
• Reliability and public safety concerns may also be a barrier to some solutions available on the market. For example, does the infrastructure itself represent a potential trip hazard, or what delay is the update to availability versus real time?
• Privacy impact assessments and management plans are in place to determine any potential law enforcement use of data collected by the smart infrastructure.

A single app which all administrative areas and spheres of government adopt creates a customer-focused experience which reaps economic and environmental benefits, and demonstrates the power of digital transformation for enhanced customer experience.

👋 You can create a post like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Image Credit: Unsplash)