SWPTA

The Southwest Parking and Transportation Association (SWPTA) hosts an annual conference bringing together parking leaders in the region and beyond. SWPTA focuses on connecting, educating and sharing with a diverse group of parking and transportation professionals serving the Southwestern Region of the United States.

TripShot was excited to attend and present at this annual gathering, meet with parking industry leaders and learn more about parking demand management operations. 

3 Key Takeaways

Our team attended sessions, met with conference attendees and discussed parking industry problems. Here are our key takeaways:

1. Parking and Transit are Often Isolated 
   Parking operations and general transportation management are more often siloed than not. Parking professionals often do not manage transit or other transportation modes alongside parking. Each campus, business and community are different, and many remain primarily focused on parking as the strongest pain point. However, others aim to solve additional mobility problems and need technology solutions that make it easy to manage the day-to-day of multimodal operations. Future successful mobility ecosystems will strive to tie all forms of mobility together for one easy-to-use customer/rider experience. 
   
2. Enforcing Parking Violations
   Parking at higher education campuses, corporate campuses and elsewhere all need more enforcement. Attendees stressed the need for technology to support better enforcement of parking violations.
   
3. Moving Away from Parking Infrastructure
   A common pain point discussed during the conference was the maintenance of physical parking infrastructure like gate arms and hardware that is currently needed to support parking management. Attendees expressed strong interest in going gateless, meaning using solutions that do not require physical access infrastructure.

Solving Pain Points

SWPTA was a great opportunity for technology companies to deepen their understanding of parking pain points and the trajectory of the parking industry. The connections at SWPTA will help move campuses and communities forward as parking management continues to meet industry changes. Parking leaders will succeed with the right planning, parking infrastructure and parking technology solutions.