OmniPark and SpotHero Create a Better Parking Experience

In 2018, New York City issued over 11.7 million parking tickets. It is no surprise that parking tickets are not enjoyable for anyone involved – customers hate coming back to their car discovering a violation and operators would prefer to sell that spot to the next driver. But in order to maximize the value of a lot or garage, parking enforcement is necessary.

Online Reservations: One Solution for Parking Transparency

Online parking reservations update almost immediately and can help save a driver against a potential ticket and the operator will have a higher likelihood of reselling that spot. In a poor customer experience, the driver paid for their parking, and enforcement missed that reservation’s license plate and issued that driver a ticket or towed them. What went wrong? There was a disconnect between the reservations platform and the enforcement technology.

Although many people trust technology, it isn’t flawless. Integrations between online reservation platforms and enforcement technology help customers get fewer tickets and increase stall turnover for operators. Technology adds a layer of transparency to the parking process for customers – and for facility operators and enforcement companies, as well.

In order to proactively solve this problem, OmniPark enlisted SpotHero to build an integration between SpotHero’s online reservations platform and their enforcement technology. OmniPark communicates directly with SpotHero’s online parking platform to create a seamless enforcement process. OmniPark now has access to the driver’s plates who looked, booked and paid for their parking online, protecting those drivers from wrongful parking violations.

An End-to-End System for Better Enforcement

Whenever a customer books their reservation online through SpotHero, they are asked to provide a plate number. Entering the license plate protects the driver from possible violations when entered correctly on an active reservation. Once the driver reserves their spot online they have a guaranteed parking spot. Now, when an enforcement officer heads out to ensure a car isn’t overstaying, OmniPark will see all active online reservations – adding another layer of protection against accidental parking violations.

The customer experience is important to parking operators and the driver. Whenever the driver has a good experience, they typically return to that facility. When parking operators provide superior customer experience, revenue increases and drivers continue to happily park at the facility.