At the start of June, we packed our gear, grabbed our lanyards and headed up to the NEC Birmingham for this year’s Parkex 2023. We had new innovations to show, a newly rebranded stand, and were excited to catch up with friends, customers, and new faces in the industry.
Relaunching Unity5 and Zatpark brands
The star of our show was our new Unity5 brand launch!
This year, we took the next step in our growth by progressing our brand identity ensuring its recognition as a technology provider. We were super excited to show our new brand to the parking community!
Once we got to the NEC our team constructed our new stand that highlighted our new brand marks and identities for Zatpark, Zatmobile, Zatpermit, Zatkiosk and Zatenviro. The stand looked awesome and we had some great feedback from clients and visitors!
One of the questions that we were asked at Parkex was:
“Unity5 and Zatpark, what’s the difference?”
We were pleased to answer this question.
Unity5 has its foundations firmly in the technology sector, and our aim is simply to make complex business processes simple in whichever sector we support. Zatpark products are enforcement technology solutions developed and delivered by Unity5. Our new corporate branding makes the heritage link between the main Unity5 brand and our product brands.
Our CEO, Dave Herbert, said about the new brand:
“Over the past 10+ years, Unity5 has established its credentials as a leader in the delivery of SaaS parking management solutions. Our new product brands are much more representative of a philosophy which aims to make complex business processes simple.”
Supporting the Parking Community
As anyone who attended Parkex this year will know, the agenda was packed with interesting talks and sessions. Our very own, Head of Strategic Relationships, Hannah Fuller, was delighted to participate in the Women in Parking Group discussion about how the parking community can work together to create a safer parking community.
Hannah talked about how partnerships and technology can be used to support the next steps for the BPA Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls campaign. The group had a very interesting discussion, talking about what we as a sector can do now to make parking safer, both for the public and for our on-foot officers.
“Every time we do one of these events I am blown away with the feedback and the immediate impact it has. Thanks to those who came and to my fellow panellists!”
Hannah Fuller, Head of Strategic Relationships, Unity5
A Parkex Innovation Trail 2023 Finalist
One of the highlights of the show was undoubtedly, Unity5 becoming a finalist in the Parkex 2023 Innovation Trail!
Unity5 Innovation: Flexible Enforcement
Unity5 moved into Local Authority parking enforcement software in 2019 and saw a new opportunity to expand our platform beyond traditional parking enforcement. Working with our customers, we created a flexible option to open up enforcement, both within and beyond parking, called Flexible Enforcement.
What is Flexible Enforcement?
We created a flexible solution to take our enforcement capabilities beyond traditional parking by enriching the existing feature set to support broader enforcement within the same platform.
Flexible Enforcement supports Local Authority enforcement teams to fulfil additional responsibilities through:
- Reducing the proliferation of tools and processes
- Allowing resources to be shared across services
- Operating in a consistent and transparent manner
- Reducing training requirements
- Removing the need for additional procurement
- Reducing costs associated with enforcement
Innovating with North East Lincolnshire Council
We worked collaboratively with North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC) to implement Flexible Enforcement. NELC are now using our enforcement software to manage school absenteeism, commonly known as truancy.
Jimmy, who is one of our Product Owners, presented our new Flexible Enforcement to attendees.
“In the last year, our Zatpark dev team delivered an industry-first, providing an integrated enforcement solution to North East Lincolnshire Council (NELC).
We worked closely with them to create automated workflows for parking, environmental, and school absence enforcement.
I’m lucky to work with a team of highly skilled developers, and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved for NELC.”
James Hampton, Zatpark Product Owner, Unity5
The fundamentals of the system are the same, with the system’s smart logic processing cases of school absence using the Zatpark Node Flow process.
“We have been working with Unity5 since October 2021. They have been a complete breath of fresh air, and nothing is too much trouble. Their communication is second to none.
No charge for amending templates or updates as this a simple software pathway change.”
Lynne Bromley, North East Lincs Council
Talk to us if you’re interested to learn more about Zatpark Flexible Enforcement.
Moving Fleet PCN Management Forward
Managing the Transfer of Liability for parking charge notices can be a real headache for our clients. Transfer of Liability happens when a parking operator issues a PCN to a keeper but the recorded keeper wasn’t the person who committed the contravention. If the vehicle is owned by a fleet company, such as a rental car business, it can be a complex process to issue the PCN to the person driving the car.
Step up Zatpark Fleet Checker!
Zatpark Fleet Checker works in conjunction with a centralised and ever-increasing database of UK lease and hire companies, providing up-to-date keeper status. Fleet Checker automatically checks the Zatpark fleet database before making an application to the DVLA for keeper details, with details and status coming back to drive the progression of the ticket through the system.
Zatpark Fleet Checker saves money by
- Reducing the cost of transferring liability
- Reducing DVLA costs
- Reducing print and postage and avoiding postal losses.
“Zatpark Fleet Checker now speeds up the Transfer of Liability of PCNs issued to hire or fleet companies. It hugely reduces the administrative burden of fleet PCN tracking for the staff dealing with PCNs. We have now removed the need to manually process the Transfer of Liabilities.”
James (Jimmy) Hampton, Zatpark Product Owner, Unity5
We were delighted that so many people at Parkex were really interested in our new Zatpark Fleet Checker. It’s always great to know that we’re delivering solutions that simplify these complex scenarios.
The result of Zatpark’s Fleet Checker means you get the maximum value from minimal effort. That’s a massive win for our customers!
Innovation & Automation
At Unity5, we are constantly improving. Zatpark’s new technology frameworks enable Unity5 to innovate rapidly, providing you with the latest cutting-edge solutions.
Zatpark delivers enforcement solutions in a wide range of scenarios that include
- Private parking
- Local Authorities
- Education
- Transport
- Residential
- Retail
- Leisure
- and even marine Ports!
Zatpark will improve efficiency in all these scenarios. To learn more about Zatpark, visit the Zatpark platform page and request a demo.
Mobile enforcement
At Parkex, our team demonstrated Zatmobile’s built-in ANPR and dynamic allow list management. Its intelligent observations enable rows of parked vehicles to be accurately and efficiently scanned by CEOs or car park managers without manually entering registration numbers.
Zatmobile uses AI to identify registration plates, even if it’s only a partial plate, and learns to improve its already incredibly high accuracy. Our team had lots of interest when demonstrating the latest version of Zatmobile on our stand.
Permit management
At Parkex this year, we demonstrated the latest versions of Zatpermit.
Zatpermit is built on the principles of automation. It simplifies administration and process tasks so you can work on growing your business rather than just working for it. With its 24/7 customer self-service portals, rule-based questionnaires and auto-approval it reduces your administrative burden allowing your staff to be deployed where they are most effective.
Parkex 2023 Takeaways
Parkex gave us three days of learning, including keynotes, technical talks, and discussions of potential use cases for Zatpark.
So what will our guests take away from this year’s Parkex?
First, the Zatpark platform continues to evolve to meet the needs of even the most demanding scenarios.
Real-world examples of Zatpark’s automation showed how to deliver end-to-end management of the full ticket lifecycle, simplifying parking enforcement for everyone.
Second, Unity5’s collaboration with the parking community remains a core strength for the future development of the Zatpark platform.
The passionate and highly engaged community of enterprise customers and users in organisations – large and small – helps inspire us to deliver improved solutions for more sectors with the Zatpark platform.
Third, Zatpark is a stunningly capable platform in direct comparison with competing solutions.
Our users consistently tell us how they overcame previously experienced constraints using the unmatched flexibility of Zatpark.
We are incredibly proud of the results our customers have achieved with Zatpark solutions. In the next year, with our new investment, we will aim to be faster, more effective, and more efficient – making complex business processes simple.
What Next After Parkex 2023?
First, we must say “thank you” to the BPA for running yet another amazing Parkex event. Thank you to all the presenters who shared their knowledge in highly engaging keynotes and discussions. Not forgetting the Zatpark team members and support staff who helped deliver engaging demos and presentations at the event.
Next, we want to get our Zatpark solutions into the hands of as many organisations as possible so they can benefit from the efficiency and simplicity of managing enforcement, no matter at what scale.
Finally, we are already thinking about our next events. Yes, you can meet us again in 2023! Keep an eye on our events page to see where you can meet us next.
We’re looking forward to collaborating with more incredible partners, developing improvements to the Zatpark platform, and celebrating the accomplishments of our awesome Unity5 team and our Zatpark customers.
See you all next year!
Neil is a writer focused on simplifying complex technology, operations and regulatory subjects for our public and private sector audience and highlighting how Unity5’s SaaS solutions simplify complex business processes.
