Parking technology Full circle Louise Parfitt chats to Jim Short, UK sales director at Orbility, about the importance of joined-up thinking, the power of partnership, and enabling people to belong think we have all jumped 10 years into the future whether by using Zoom and Teams for calls and conferences, or embracing new parking systems. Jim Short is the UK sales director at parking systems provider Orbility. He says that whereas there used to be a difference between what clients in Truro or Aberdeen wanted compared with those in Westminster, this is no longer the case. The gap has closed. The residents of Truro and Aberdeen are as comfortable with cashless as the residents of London. Between Covid and increasing cash collection costs, there has been a much faster natural transition towards cashless parking than we expected. For Short, this is a positive step he sees technology as key in enabling interoperability. When I first joined the parking I profession 10 years ago, it was all about paying by coins and notes, with card payments just coming in. Five years ago, it became more of a 50/50 split between cash and card payments. Now, we are seeing mostly cashless systems and pay stations. On top of that, there are account-based payments. We are now integrating with mobile payment providers so people can use the same account they use to pay for on-street parking to pay in the off-street barrier-controlled car park as well, he says. But Short caveats the enthusiasm for new tech with a warning: We need to be careful we dont introduce something for the sake of it or have a huge range of confusing options that arent providing any value, he says. Technology should have a measurable benefit that improves user experience and offers more convenience. In parking, it should enable integration 32 britishparking.co.uk PN Feb 2022 pp32-33 Orbility.indd 32 24/01/2022 13:47