PT's Parking Blog

“Wow” and the IPI

I sat out on the last day of the IPI show to find new products. You know the ones that make you go "wow." If "wow" means something that will change the face of the industry (Like a prox cards, Pay by Credit Card or Pay on Foot) then I failed. The comments I heard from many attendees and exhibitors was that a lot of the products were "same old same old" and others were similar to existing products, but with new outside designs. That is, new paint, new 'skins', new "look" but not a lot of new technology.

In Europe, the major shows are scheduled on an every other year basis. Manufacturers use these events as a 'launch' for new products. We like to think that technology moves rapidly, however in our industry it's a tad more glacial. It's one thing to develop a cell phone that is also a camera, computer, and gameboy with your potential marketplace at a billion users. Huge upfront investment is made based on a high end outcome. Pushing the product to market is necessary and desirable.

However when your potential market is limited in a niche like parking, things move more slowly. Often mockups are shown at trade shows to gauge a reaction, and then adjustments are made as the product finds its way to market and design flaws which went unnoticed in the lab now become apparent. This process on an every other year schedule can mean that new ideas can be test 'shown' at the show and then either put forward or dropped over the upcoming 24 months, a 'final' product can be displayed or a new set of ideas put forward.

When the show runs every year, the manufacturers are hard pressed to keep ahead of the 'wow' factor. Often a year isn't enough time to forge a new product or take a new design from the drawing board to 'reality."

That being said, I do think that some manufacturers made great progress where product enhancement is concerned.

For instance, Park Assist is a parking guidance company that is partnering with Amano McGann. Last year their product, based on using CCTV to determine open parking spaces and red/green lights to guide parkers to them added a new twist. The camera would 'read' your license plate and then you could enter the plate when you paid and the system would tell you where your car was parked.

This year, Park Assist added a LPR camera on entry. When you arrive, your license number was 'attached' to the ticket you received on entry. When you leave, the process of inserting your ticket at a Pay on Foot also called up your vehicle and presented a picture of the location of your car. No need to enter a plate number (and perhaps key it in improperly). It's fast and efficient.

Another such example is the Luke II by Digital Payment Technologies. The company took their successful "Luke" product and expanded on a theme. The new P and D machine enabled you to pay by cell and then be notified by text when your time is nearing completion, and enabled you to update your payment from your phone, if allowed. The new product has many enhancements in design in both the way money is handled and the robust nature of the enclosure.

I noted that virtually all single space meter companies were providing a "pay by credit card" facility on their meters. Let's face it, the market was crying for this technology, one company led the pack, and now others are bringing the enhancement to their products.

Many companies added EV charging stations to their product lines. It was difficult to walk down an aisle without seeing these in abundance. Some supplied the stations as standalone units to be purchased by garages as benefits for potential parkers while other companies (like revenue control) saw them as add ons so their equipment could collect money from the charging stations as well as for parking. Brand spanking new? No, there were a number of such stations last year. However many manufacturers jumped on the sustainability band wagon and provided these products.

Reduce expenses and become 'green' by selecting lighting that uses less power. Pay your monthly parking at a POF with a credit card. In street sensors will provide data for occupancy and rate determination. Cloud computing was noted in a number of booths – locate your computer hardware off site and do away with the limitations of on-site data centers. It was all there.

Next year, expect some of these products to have been moved aside, and others to take their places. Perhaps I am jaded, but for me "wow" is when a company takes a product and makes it better, makes it work, and makes it fit the marketplace. I saw some of those. And I did say "wow".

JVH

This article was underwritten by ACS, A Xerox Company.

 

In the Garden of the Beasts –

Eric Larson, who has written stirring nonfiction about a serial killer during Chicago's great exhibition of 1898 (The Devil in White City) and Marconi's struggle to bring radio to the planet (Thunderstruck), does his best work telling us what happens when the world turns a blind eye to evil. From the dust cover:

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.

A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the "New Germany," she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance--and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Goring and the expectedly charming--yet wholly sinister--Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.

Memorial Day is a good time to consider the alternatives. We took one path in 1933, when a strong involved America could have stopped a stumbling Hitler before World War II and the Holocaust. This book reminds us that hiding from horror never makes us safe, but ensures our possible destruction. Plus it's a really great read. Eric Larson has a winner.

JVH

Thank you is not enough, but It is all I have -- Memorial Day 2011

Pax Americana – For the past seven decades America has been vilified around the world. People march in protest in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and now the Middle East. They complain, gripe, call us "ugly" and imperial. We either don't do enough, or do too much.

American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have taken war to enemies of freedom in virtually every decade. We did it not for land, conquest or treasure. Our country is no larger now that it was in 1880. When we were victorious in Germany, Italy, the Philippines, Japan, Cuba, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, or any of the other bush wars we have fought, we asked only enough land to bury our dead.

After all the shouting is done, all the politicians have had they say, all the condemnation of us from within and without has died down, our people know why we do what we do. It was for Freedom.

It's been nearly 50 years since we had a draft, yet we are the most powerful army on the planet. Our military's men and women serve in harm's way without complaint. From a piece by Representative Jeff Miller, Chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee:

Staff Sergeant Daniel J. Clay, from Pensacola, Fla., is one of the more than 5,500 who have given their lives since Sept. 11, 2001. He is part of our new generation of veterans, the Noble Generation — a generation that came of age upon witnessing horrifying destruction and terrorism within our own borders.

Clay was a Marine, and he was proud of it, forgoing college to join the Corps after high school. He was killed by an IED alongside nine of his battle buddies in Fallujah, Iraq, on December 1, 2005. He wrote in case of his death:

"I know what honor is. It is not a word to be thrown around. It has been an Honor to protect and serve all of you. I faced death with the secure knowledge that you would not have to . . . "

A tribute posted on a website dedicated to Staff Sergeant Clay summed up the helplessness we all feel when we learn of a life extinguished in defense of our nation: "I wish I could take your families and friends' pain away, but I can't. . . . Thank you is not enough, but it is all I have."

JVH

Pirates of the Caribbean

The movie is subtitled "On Stranger Tides" and much of it is a tad strange and it certainly isn't great art. But it's a lot of fun. Johnny Depp camps it up as Captain Jack Sparrow, beginning the flick by taking the British Monarchy on and having a chase scene through the streets of 17^th Century London. He is impressed onto a ship captained by Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter? Angelica (Penelope Cruz). They are in search of, are you ready, the fountain of youth.

Leading the British contingent chasing after Jack Sparrow and co is Barbarossa (Geoffrey Rush). There are man eating mermaids, ships that come alive, a love story (well maybe two love stories, if you count the ongoing relationship between Angelica and Jack) yes a love story between a preacher brought along to try to save Blackbeard's soul and Syrena, the beautiful and not so fully clothed Mermaid. Strategically placed hair keeps the "R" rating at bay.

There is a lot of sword play and derring-do. But the key to this franchise is Depp's Captain Jack. His dry wit and foppish demeanor make the movie. It's worth seeing just for his role. He plays Captain Jack right out La Cage aux Faux so well that when Angelica tries to keep him from abandoning her on a desert island by telling him she is pregnant with his baby you believe him when he says that he didn't remember….well you know. And he says he would never be too drunk to forget THAT.

Of course the premise is absurd and the characters rather two dimensional. But this is a movie about pirates and mermaids, and the fountain of youth, not about a King who needed Rush to teach him how to speak without a stutter.

If you want to have a good laugh, and there is one around every corner, see this movie. But don't expect to be blown away. It's not that kind of film.

Oh, I suggest you DO NOT see the 3D version. There isn't much of a "wow" factor in the 3 D parts. It seems that 90% of the movie isn't 3D and the 10 percent isn't worth seeing the 90 percent through the glasses which actually makes it seem like you are watching through sunglasses.

JVH

So you didn’t believe me about the Brass Knuckles…

Bart over at Paylock send me proof of the incident:

I guess one can see how the TSA might have thought this was a weapon. Andy seems to love the moment.

As for the "other" gift – Starship Enterprise Pizza Cutter – It exists:

And we used it last night. Works great. The TSA didn't seem to mind this sharp tool. I guess it's not on their list of forbidden items.

Bart apologized for my troubles. Heh – They had better be looking over their shoulders. As Kahn said in the movie "Revenge is a dish that is best served cold." J

We did have a great time playing Family Feud with the Lilliana Rambo's Texas group and the gang at Paylock.

JVH

Who Knew?

Cary posted this link on PT's Facebook page. It's a short film about Validation. Parking Validation, and personal Validation. It's extremely well done, and worth the 15 minute investment. Over 5 million people have watched it since it was put up on YouTube in 2008. If you are a fan of "Bones" you will quickly recognize the star.

JVH

JVH on Blog Radio – NOW!

Wow – I was interviewed along with David Cummins, VP over at ACS about my musings on the IPI show. If you are interested, you can hear it here.

I commented that I felt there weren't a ton of new "wow" items at the IPI, but that many from last year had evolved and new features have been added. The show was definitely "green" with many sustainability issues addressed, most predominantly the locating of EV charging stations in garages.

JVH

How Does a College Professor Become a Parking Rock Star?

I was asked by ACS, a Xerox company, muse a bit on parking for their corporate web site. This is the second of the series…

 

Are you a Shoupista? Do you actually know the Shoup dog? Don Shoup is speaking tomorrow. The room is sold out.

   

When Professor Donald Shoup of UCLA published "The High Cost of Free Parking" in 2005 he had little thought of what might be coming. He was taking a radical position. On street parking pricing should be set so that it affected the demand. Parking requirements by cities should be abandoned. The money raised should be returned to the neighborhoods from wince it came.

   

This flew in the face of parking pricing programs that had been followed for decades.

   

Whether by design or not, cities sat out to subsidize parking in their downtown cores. Low priced or free parking was thought necessary to "bring customers into the downtown area," and to keep constituents happy. The concept of keeping parking cheap or free was endemic.

   

The pricing model was upside down. Pricing in surface lots and parking structures, although still relatively inexpensive, was more costly than convenient on street parking. On street parking was jammed, and off street structures and lots had plenty of parking available. Drivers would cruise around and around looking for cheap on street parking….

 

To read the rest, click here

Do you adjust on street rates every time too many spaces are empty?

I had breakfast with a manufacturer of on street equipment yesterday at the IPI show. We spoke about a number of topics but he asked me what I thought about market based pricing. The way he asked the question made me think he didn't think much of it.

I probed a bit and found that he didn't believe that prices could be reasonably change hour by hour to fit the number of cars on the street. "How would you communicate that to drivers?" he said.

He noted that his product was perfectly capable of changing rates on a moment's notice, meter by meter. That wasn't his point. He was musing that the good Professor Shoup might have a bit of an "ivory tower" approach and the real world works differently. Good Point.

I haven't reviewed this with the Shoup-dog, but from my point of view you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. It seems to me that to work, the word has to get out as to the rates in an area at a certain time. When the new theater opens, rates will go up in that area when it is usually full (Friday night and on weekends and holidays) but they will go down on Monday PM and etc. We find that an area with tony clubs and restaurants may have higher rates during the evening but low rates during the day.

Rates are adjusted as data is collected about occupancy in each area and raised or lowered so that there is a free space on each block space all the time. Sf Park is adjusting rates monthly, I believe and then not more than a quarter a go. Who knows that may be too often. You need to be sure that the change in occupancy isn't a one-time anomaly, say the opening of Star Wars vs the opening of Hangover IV.

To me it just makes common sense that the rates are adjusted often enough to make a difference, but not so often that you lose sight of the objective

JVH

LA Enforcement Chief “retires”

The powers that be in Los Angeles apparently have removed the head of parking enforcement. Wanda over on PT's Facebook page posted the story yesterday. You can read it there with the PT Facebook wag's comments here, or the actual article here.

First it was the Porno movie, then shop lifting and soliciting prostitution. Yep, this means that supervision is lax at the city that owns LAX. It was interested what they said in the article. He was "untouchable" because his department brought in $100 million a year in citation revenue.

Wasn't anyone at the LA city government wondering how much they could bring in if there was some good oversight in the department? I wonder what a total audit of the enforcement division would bring to light?

Sheesh

JVH