Connectivity and IoT featuring Q-Free

Connectivity and IoT are both concepts that are increasingly playing a major role in parking. In order to learn more, we enlisted the help of Jan-Erik Sandberg, Chief Technology Officer of Q-Free and started with how he believes that connectivity can ease parking pain. "One of the hurdles consumers still have in the market is the lack of connectivity, not only from devices and sensors to ensure (they receive) updated parking availability but also the lack of connected systems between different locations and even locations owned by separate entities. For the consumer, this means they have to spend time looking for available parking as well as having to struggle to figure out expected costs of their parking. For operators, this lack of a connected system means they might not be able to get the best utilization of their locations. For free parking scenarios, this results in the locations not providing the optimal benefit as expected. For paid scenarios, this means that dynamic pricing and the ability to market available spaces is really hard to do. When connecting consumers’ vehicles, devices and systems, a lot of opportunities open up for both operators and consumers.