Honk does #CPABanff2017

Members of our Sales Squad flew to beautiful, serene Banff a couple of weeks ago to attend and exhibit at this year’s CPA Conference at The Fairmont Banff Springs. You really can’t beat a setting like Banff - definitely one of the most picturesque and stunning places in oh-Canada! What better place to talk all things parking?

It came as no surprise that the overarching main theme of the conference was the future of parking. Specifically: data, autonomous vehicles and smart cities.

Data

Data has been parking’s ‘trendy’ best friend for a few years now. You can’t go a week without hearing something about ‘big data’ popping up in the parking news. (Well actually, this transcends to so many other industries.) Now more than ever, people are really honing in on using all this data to make smart decisions, and help push forward new policies around parking. **Shameless plug: Honk integrated with Smarking’s technology to give EasyPark a holistic view of their parking operations in Vancouver! Smarking gave a session on ‘Using Data to Inform Parking Policy Decisions’ at CPA.

Smart Cities

Closely intertwined with big data - first comes data, and then comes smart cities. At the highest level, smart cities use different types and sources of data to funnel back to manage assets and resources in the most efficient way possible. Quite the mouthful, coles notes: use data to make a city operate as efficiently as possible. Smart parking is one of the many different data collection points - and a crucial one! (Not biased, it’s a fact).

Autonomous Vehicles

And thirdly, we have autonomous vehicles. Which is really at the future of smart cities. We’ve all heard news stories on how Uber and the likes are working tirelessly to create autonomous vehicles. Where does this fit with smart cities and parking? Will likely find out sooner than later!

Pictured: Kacey rep’ing our Honk booth on the conference tradeshow floor.

Pictured: Can we please take a minute to take in these hotel #views? Yep. Beautiful slice of Canada right there. You can’t have a #CPABanff2017 blog post without at least one picture of the beautiful landscape, duh!

Well, there you have it. A quick 101 on #CPABanff2017 in case you couldn’t make it, or you love hearing about parking conferences (no judgment). And now.. back to that parking grind!

It’s Our Birthday and We’ll Self-Promote If We Want To!

Happy 4th birthday to us!

Birthdays are a time to reflect on the past, to see how far one’s come, and to plan out the next 365 days ahead. And boy, what a whirlwind of a year we’ve had at Honk! We could not be more proud. So many accomplishments over these past 12 months: from new hires, city and campus launches, feature updates, and partnerships to awards, it’s been one hell of a ride!

Four years ago Honk was all but a dream. We wanted to make parking in Canada better - give it a digital makeover. Take out the hassle, and get drivers on their way faster and more efficiently. Fast forward 4 years, and look at us now! We’re quite literally coast to coast across Canada with hundreds of thousands of happy honkers using us - relying on us - for their parking.

Here’s a list of some of our proudest moments from the past year:

Launches:

• City of London

• Off-street parking with EasyPark in the City of Vancouver

• Campus parking at University of Alberta

• Boat parking: Gananoque, Port Perry, McNab/Braeside

• City of Oakville

• City of Waterloo

Michael alongside Mayor Dave Jaworsky, BIA president Patti Brooks and Coun. Melissa Durrel at the official launch of Honk at City of Waterloo.

Partnerships & Awards:

• Ranked #6 on Canada’s Top Growth Companies

• Huge collaboration with Masterpass

• Zipcar partnership

• Toronto Community Housing Partnership offering excess monthly spots at a discount

We’re blowing out these cyber candles, and then rolling up our sleeves to get back to work to make Honk even better, faster, smarter and cheaper!

- The Honk Team

Honk Does New Orleans: Parking Professionals in the Big Easy

Every year 3,500+ parking professionals from 45 countries not-so-begrudgingly head to a conference center somewhere fabulous in the US for IPI Conference & Expo; the world’s largest educational and networking event for the parking and transportation industry. This year’s conference (read: party) brought everyone together in Creole Country - New Orleans, Louisiana.

Our Director of Sales (Kacey Siskind) and CEO (Michael Back) represented Honk at the event this year. There was lots of networking, meetings, educational sessions, and of course food, drink & music!

The biggest takeaways from the conference?

A couple of important themes really jumped out from Kacey and Michael’s time at IPI 2017: big data & connected vehicles.

Big Data

We’ve heard this buzzword for a while now, but the parking industry is really starting to hone in on big data. And why not? Never before has there been so much information pouring in from so many different outlets - why not be smart and take advantage of this info to decrease inefficiencies and increase revenue? Data is king after all.

Shameless plug!: Honk provides parking operators, municipalities and universities with a financial and data-driven back-office. This web-based portal sheds insight on parking behaviour like never before. This ensures they’re making the most out of their parking inventory and better serving customers.

Connected Vehicles

Another word of the moment that’s here to stay, thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT). There was a lot of focus on how connected vehicles affect the parking industry, and what proactive steps can be taken to leverage and prepare parking for the autonomous, connected vehicle revolution that is sure to be here before we know it.  

….and food (duh)!

We can’t visit New Orleans without a dinner at Cochon, muffalettas (our favourite is from Central Grocery & Deli) and juicy, delectable crawfish. Kacey was lucky enough to stumble on The Mid-City Bayoo Boogaloo - a New Orleans festival that features music, food, arts & handicrafts. (Needless to say, the office was a tad jealous of her Instagram feed while she was away!).

Next up on the conference circuit: CPA (Canadian Parking Association) Conference in Banff, AB. Team Honk is super excited to take in the fresh Rocky Mountain air, and spread some good old Honk love to our Canadian clients!