Municipal Parking Services: Revealing drivers’ parking behavior to unlock new commercial opportunities
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- IBM BigInsights
- SoftLayer
- Findability Platform
- MPS Sentry meters and software
Tech Stack
- Cloud-based analytics
- Hadoop
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Productivity Improvements
- Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries
- Cities & Municipalities
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
- Predictive Quality Analytics
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Data Science Services
About The Customer
Municipal Parking Services (MPS) is a company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets technologically advanced parking solutions. Their patented Sentry Meter and SAAS software are connected devices with built-in touchscreens and cameras that capture real-time data about drivers and parking behavior. The company's goal is to make parking fair by helping drivers find, park and pay for available spots. The meters’ seven-by-four-inch color screens also provide information about the local area, and use cameras and sensors to capture irrefutable evidence of infringements. MPS aims to analyze data from these meters to develop even smarter parking services.
The Challenge
Municipal Parking Services (MPS) designs, develops, manufactures and markets technologically advanced parking solutions, such as its patented Sentry Meter and SAAS software – a connected device with built-in touchscreen and cameras that capture real-time data about drivers and parking behavior. In most municipalities, parking is an under-utilized asset. Few cities have the resources to fully enforce their parking rules. As a result, it’s estimated that only 50 percent of people comply and pay in full for their parking, and only 20 percent of infringements are actually penalized, due to a lack of enforcement personnel. MPS wanted to analyze data from these meters to develop even smarter parking services, but the sheer volume of data made this difficult to achieve.
The Solution
MPS implemented the Findability Platform, a sophisticated reporting and analytics solution developed by Findability Sciences, powered by IBM BigInsights® technology, and running in the cloud on SoftLayer®. This architecture allows MPS to “land” all of its meter data, combine it with weather data and other external data, and analyze it rapidly. As each meter creates around 500 sessions of data per day, this ability to handle high volume, high velocity data is critical. IBM BigInsights adds an important analytics component to the Findability Platform, allowing clients to uncover key insights about customer behavior from large volumes of data. Findability Sciences runs the Findability Platform and IBM BigInsights on SoftLayer, IBM’s state-of-the-art cloud platform. SoftLayer provides a dedicated environment of virtual servers to support the parking analytics solution for MPS, hosted at IBM data centers in the US.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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