Application of Mobile Parking System and Performance of County Government of Nairobi

Abstract

Mobile systems has experienced unprecedented growth following the invention of the internet and increased use of smart phones both locally and across the globe. Indeed, there is no doubt that the internet and mobile applications have made it possible to administered and manage provision of services by the County Government of Nairobi. The mobile parking system launched by the County Government of Nairobi has been found to pose significant benefits to the county government, motorists and even the society in general. This system has led to remarkable increases in parking revenue. While the system is still in the formative stages in Nairobi, motorists are opening up to the idea of mobile parking applications and relatively good number of motorists have already embraced the system. The objective of this study was to establish the relationship between application of mobile parking system and performance of the county government of Nairobi. Further it also sought to establish the drivers of use of mobile parking application in the county. The study targeted 85 county government administrative units within the 17 sub-counties and a cross sectional survey design was adopted. A regression model was used to analyze the data. The study findings revealed that some of the drivers of use of mobile parking applications but to a moderate extent are: increased use of smart-phones by the public, high speed broadband internet connectivity, perceived ease of use of the mobile parking application and high levels of IT literacy among the motorists. Further the findings indicate that they are massive benefits associated with mobile parking systems. The top rated benefits included cost reduction for the county government, convenience to motorists and increased parking revenue collection. The study further revealed that a there is a stronger positive relationship between application of mobile parking system and internet connectivity, perceived ease of use of the system and levels of IT literacy among the users. There was found to be a positive correlation between the application of mobile parking system and parking revenue performance and the performance in terms of daily and monthly revenue targets. The study recommends that in order to encourage increased usage of the mobile parking system, the county government needs to invest in the requisite communication technology and broadband networks to promote usage of the system even in areas with poor network coverage. Most importantly motorists in the county have to be more willingly to migrate from the traditional, manual ticketing to the automated mobile parking system. Finally, the county government has to look into policies and invest in systems that will improve the current internet penetration rates across the county if the mobile parking system is going to thrive.