How To Charge Variable Parking Rates To Boost ROI From Smart Parking

Technologies such as AI and IoT play a key role in transforming your regular parking facility into a smart parking lot. The hardware and software tools powered by them also enable the strategy of variable pricing to be implemented in your smart parking facility without hassles.

Smart parking allows businesses and facility owners to increase their revenue streams in various ways. By installing AI, IoT and computer vision-powered tools in their facilities, owners can automate and simplify their parking fee and fine collection processes. Several organizations in retail, transportation and other fields use variable pricing to maximize their earnings. Variable pricing is a business strategy that dynamically alters the number of money customers have to pay for products or services based on ongoing demand trends and material availability. Parking facility owners and administrators can use variable pricing to get the most out of their investment in smart parking tech.

By Automating Variable Fee Collection

AI and IoT-powered tools are capable of automating the process of parking fee collection from vehicle owners. AI uses the vehicular data captured from computer vision cameras in parking lots to maintain records of how many cars, bikes, and trucks are parked in a facility at any given point in time. If the availability of space is low in a parking lot, an AI-powered tool can increase the parking prices automatically. So, vehicle owners have to pay more parking fees than regular if there are fewer vacant slots remaining in a parking lot. Certain public parking facilities in New York and San Francisco change their rates based on the availability of space as well as a few other factors, such as traffic trends.

Automated variable parking rates are highly useful during peak hours. During such a period, there will be several vehicle owners desperately looking for a spot to park their machines. Owners of smart parking facilities can utilize this opportunity to increase their parking rates during such phases. Additionally, as the payment process is digitized and automated, vehicle owners would not have to wait during peak hours in a parking lot to pay cash to the fee collectors.

By Monetizing Parking Information

Smart parking systems can provide on-the-fly AI-generated information regarding parking availability (across different parking lots) and real-time variable parking rates to vehicle owners through specialized smartphone apps. Such information can be incredibly valuable for vehicle owners during peak hours when they are trying to find legal parking spaces in a given location. Facility owners and public sector parking management agencies can increase their tech ROI by monetizing this information. So, vehicle owners pay a premium to get the latest information regarding the vacant parking slots available near their real-time location and the variable parking rates payable for them.

Variable pricing allows parking facility owners and designated public authorities to generate money in other ways too. Unsurprisingly, AI, IoT, computer vision, and other technologies play their part in making the implementation of such strategies seamless.