FEATURE Year in review The year that was It may seem like a mere blink of an eye since we welcomed in 2018, but so much has happened, from digital developments to parking bills and an increase in electric vehicle uptake. With the end of the year upon us, we asked firms for their parking highlights of 2018, and what they hope the new year will bring Hannah Fuller UK operations director, PayByPhone We have seen a rapid increase in councils going cashless over the past year, and we fully expect that trend to pick up speed in 2019. Local authorities are realising the benefits of a mobile payment option. There is a significant costsaving in not having to maintain pay and display machines, and it is more environmentally friendly, too. Drivers expect to be able to extend their parking sessions remotely over a phone or via an app. The overall uptake of our app has gone from 795,000 downloads in 2017 to 1.2 million in 2018 for the same nine-month period. Apple and Google Pay went live over the past year too, and users of the watchOS 4-supported Apple Watch can now extend their parking sessions without using their phones. The next big development will see parking availability and parking route information widely available as part of the mobile parking payment service. As an industry, this will then take us one step closer to solving the aggregation piece of the puzzle, which needs to be resolved in order for car manufacturers to make built-in parking services available to consumers in the smart cars of the future. The next big development will see parking availability and parking route information widely available as part of the mobile parking payment service 24 Britishparking.co.uk PNDec18 pp24-26 Year in review.indd 24 26/11/2018 16:20