Helping fund smart city parking projects

Do you need to upgrade your parking service and user experience but don’t know how you are going to fund it? Are your budgets set for the year but you need to identify new revenue streams? Or, maybe you need to promote safe transport options that ensure social distancing such as private vehicles and contactless payment?

Right now, Australian and New Zealand council budgets are under pressure, and with revenues down and rate defaults increasing, the economic pressure is felt across the community, businesses and council.

To this end, Maia Financial and Smart Parking have been working on a finance package that enables councils to continue to fund important smart city parking projects without the need for red tape and CAPEX signoff. This package is designed to provide flexible finance options through low interest rates and a ‘zero upfront’ Smart Parking monitoring and enforcement solution.

Maia Financial is on the Procurement Australia and WALGA panels. Councils membership of these panels enables the engagement of the loan and the service in one package; providing ‘speed to value’ so that council can start delivering lower travel times, reduced congestion and emissions, safe transport, and increased retail spending benefits.

Our operational expenditure financing and Smart Parking solution means council has nil to pay for the first six months of the smart parking sensor based parking management system.

This OPEX funding delivers the benefits of the Smart Parking solution and, as the solution can be operated on a cost recovery basis, requires zero budget to get started. We thoroughly scope your requirements in partnership so that there is zero upfront to pay, and council requires as few as five additional parking infringement notices per working day to be cash positive day one for a 500 sensor deployment. 

The time saving and user experience benefits are proven. Our Smart Parking service was recently independently evaluated to have; 

• lowered hunting times for parking by as much as 61%
• the potential to increase retail spending by up to $4,078 per-day through improved driver guidance - using real-time availability information
• Improved the parking experience so that no survey respondents reported parking as ‘difficult’ after the introduction of smart parking sensors, signs and app.

Sample OPEX model for the healthcare sector

A sample solution for 1,593 sensors would be as follows; 

• Total Solution Cost: $754,768.65 (ex GST)
• Term: 36 months
• Rental: $60,179.45 (ex GST) payable quarterly in advance
• Total Repayments: $722,153.40 ex GST
• Effective Interest Rate: -3.18%* (needs disclaimer) 
• Cost per-sensor is 41cents per day

*indicative solution based on effective interest rates at August 2020