FSM


Stadium Parking


Stadium Payment Resilience Is The Goal By John Tait, Global Managing Director for TNS’ Payments Market business


Out Of The Park:


The UK events industry is now worth an estimated £68.7 billion1 by 2032, as fans flock to stadiums, arenas


,


and across the pond the US live events market is projected to reach $651 billion2


and venues that deliver more than just a game. They want experiences that are as immersive and frictionless as anything they find online, with the added magic of being in-person. What most people don’t see, however, is how much depends on what happens before they even reach their seat, starting with the payments experience at the car park.


Picture game day at a major sports stadium. In the space of two hours, tens of thousands of cars approach the gates. Payment systems at parking terminals must process thousands of unattended transactions at once. If a gate slows down or a payment terminal freezes, traffic backs up, tempers rise and


revenue starts changing rooms. Nearl Exploring Consumer 32 FSM y 4 in 1!


Our research, published in the white paper ‘Keeping Payments Simple:


Demand for Seamless Payment


Methods’, highlights the stakes: nearly half of UK consumers and 46% of US consumers say they experienced a parking payment failure in the past year. Nearly one in four say it happened more than once.


One well-known stadium, with more than 9,000 spaces across multiple lots, shows how complex this becomes. With such a large network of payment terminals, the stakes are high. Payment systems that stumble under pressure are not acceptable.


A single point of failure can cascade quickly: stalled lines at entry, lost fees, confusion at exits, traffic that spills out onto city streets. On top of the sheer volume of transactions, venues juggle a mix of technologies such as license plate recognition, tap-to-pay, mobile pre-bookings and payment acquirer routing. Each must work together seamlessly.


leaking before the players leave the The Challenge Of Sudden Surges


Stadium parking is unlike retail or transit, where there is a constant flow of customers and passengers with relatively minor peaks and troughs. For most of the week and sometimes the entirety of the off-season, stadium car parks sit quiet, then, within only a few hours, thousands of spaces must be filled and cleared. To give some idea of the size of the problem - in the US, the MetLife stadium, which hosts the New York Giants and Jets, has 27,500 parking spaces3


. The scale of this is different per region


with many of the UK’s prominent stadiums located in major cities or urban areas, but it doesn’t detract from the demand it puts on infrastructure. Take Wembley, for example. It is the UK’s biggest stadium and offers around 2,900 spaces4


. Designing for


averages is not enough, operators must build to accommodate the busiest times – with many thousands of transactions taking place in mere minutes.


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