So, this is nothing new. People in the parking industry have been grappling with this problem for years (I'm in that industry). Parking technology has just rocketed ahead from where it was even 5 years ago. From license plate recognition (LPR - allows parking without having a physical permit) to being able to forecast and adjust prices based on historical demand, parking people have a vast wealth of knowledge on their hands.<p>The only problem is, most vendors of parking management software have enterprise products spanning millions of lines of code that have to be maintained, and it's hard to keep adding new features like "performance parking" while keeping basic features like selling permits and interfacing with accounting and bursar systems up-to-date.<p>It's definitely a challenging (yet exciting!) time to be in the parking technology industry.<p>Edit: Ooh, I'm forgetting about smart meters, mobile apps (both for the parker and the parking operation), and more. Mobile apps are the rage now for parking operations, as they replace expensive ($5000+) industrial handhelds for parking enforcement agents.