Transit Systems

Transit authorities are the ombudsmen of the parking world. The ever-increasing demands of industry requires them to mitigate on several fronts from helping reduce congestion in crowded downtown locations and providing adequate service to suburban and rural areas on an affordable basis, to ensuring consumer satisfaction and operating in a more environmentally conscientious manner – all of this often with flat or reduced budgets. Parking, and Park-and-Ride programs, plays an important role in connecting travelers from their home to a convenient point of entry into the transit system. They allow the existing transit network to extend further without necessarily adding service by enabling commuters to drive their own vehicle part of the way. Ultimately, this “green-friendly” ecosystem reduces congestion and carbon emissions by limiting the distance driven, and it increases consumer satisfaction. Parking can also be an important source of revenue for transit authorities. It’s often thought that parking and transit interests are at odds, but they are in fact synergistic in many ways.

Digital Payment Technologies’ (DPT) LUKE and SHELBY multi-space pay stations provide a cost-effective, efficient, and consumer-friendly alternative to single-head meters and gated systems. More than half of surveyed North American municipalities are considering or actively using multi-space pay stations today, as are many transit systems. Multi-space pay stations provide a number of benefits over other parking models, such as:

• Significantly reduced capital and operational expenditures when compared to gated systems and single-head meters.
• No line-ups at entry and exit gates during busy periods; there are no gates.
• More flexible forms of payment including coins, bills, credit cards, Pay-by-Phone and coupons.
• Flexible rate structures, such as hourly, daily, monthly.
• Text notifications alerting to parking sessions about to expire, and the ability to add time via mobile phone.
• Solar/low power "eco-friendly" pay stations with cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity.
• Machines can "call for help" when down and can be remotely diagnosed.
• Analytic functions allow operators to identify trends and optimize rates to maximize profitability.