Bethlehem Parking Authority Brings the User Experience Into the 21st Century
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At a Glance
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The Challenge
The Bethlehem Parking Authority’s three downtown garages serve dozens of local businesses, restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues with convenient monthly and transient parking options.
The city garages are also the only parking option for the 1.2 million attendees of the city’s annual Musikfest. Historically, the garages managed this high-volume event by stationing team members in each lane to take cash on entry.
Within the first month of stepping into his new role at Bethlehem Parking Authority, Executive Director Steve Fernstrom realized the limitations of their old legacy PARCS solution.
One of the organization’s new initiatives was to bring high-tech solutions that would offer customers a better experience – and the decades-old ticket spitters at Bethlehem’s garages were not living up to that standard. And with the popularity of Musikfest only growing, the Bethlehem Parking Authority needed a way to automate their event parking solution and keep traffic moving.
The Solution
Seeking a partner that could take a fresh approach to parking, the Bethlehem Parking Authority chose FLASH as technology partner. First, installing at just one location; then, upon seeing how much they could accomplish with FLASH, putting the same technology at all three locations across the city.
At the beginning, just getting barcodes was a huge improvement but we didn’t stop there. We discovered so many add ons and high-tech features we could provide for our customers.
Bethlehem’s locations utilize a variety of features like:
- Text to pay makes it easy for drivers to park and pay on their mobile phone
- HelpMeParker to streamline user support
- Bluetooth access for monthly parkers
- A variety of validation solutions for different businesses (tablets for two high volume locations, stickers and access codes at the others)
The Result
With cloud-based FLASH technology powering operations at the city’s parking garages, both parkers and management are enjoying a more streamlined experience. Since the installation of a FLASH PARCS solution, Bethlehem has seen a 70% drop in support calls.
With the FLASH Monthly AR solution, monthly parkers can easily set up online accounts and turn on auto-pay. With Bethlehem managing customer accounts online, they have reduced monthly labor expenses by 25% and have seen a 40% increase in autopay revenue.
The automated FLASH event parking solution is in place to help manage high-volume events like Musikfest and has helped Bethlehem eliminate the cost of placing parking attendants in each lane. Instead, team members can be assigned to more impactful initiatives that benefit the event experience.
With real-time insight into their operations, the Bethlehem Parking Authority is strategizing what future-ready technology they can introduce next to keep improving the parking experience for Bethlehem residents and visitors alike.
As someone who is wildly into numbers and data, it’s incredible to be able to access so many analytics and reports with the click of a button.
