Keith Chen joins Passport’s Board of Advisors

Passport, the leader in parking and transit technology systems, today announced that Dr. Keith Chen has officially joined the company as its newest board advisor. With Passport’s rapid expansion to new markets, including internationally in the U.K. and Canada, Dr. Chen’s expertise will be a beneficial addition to the company’s smart city initiatives.

Dr. Chen was previously the Head of Economic Research at Uber where he created the algorithm behind their surge-pricing model and solidified his notoriety as a world-renowned expert in the field of behavioral dynamic pricing. He is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at UCLA, where his research melds traditional disciplinary boundaries in subject and methodology, bringing unconventional tools to support problems at the intersection of Economics, Psychology and Biology.

“In modern cities parking is by far the largest land use, and I’m incredibly excited to be part of the company leading the way in making sure that resource is used well,” said Dr. Chen.

In his early research career, Dr. Chen studied economic behavior in primates, revealing that a number of implicit biases held by humans may be evolutionary in origin. Dr. Chen’s TED Talk discussing the impact of a person’s native language on his propensity to save currently has more than 1.6 million views. As a board advisor, Dr. Chen will be contributing his expertise and ideas toward the evolution of Passport’s parking and transit platforms.

Cities have the opportunity to leverage data in order to transform the ways that they interact with members of their communities. Passport is investing heavily in its ability to partner with municipalities, universities, agencies and private operators to surface valuable insights and make them actionable in improving everyday experiences.

“Passport aims to reduce friction in municipal interactions in ways that improve the lives of the people within a community,” stated Michael Scully, Chief Product Officer at Passport. “Incorporating insights from behavioral economics will help us make better products. I’ve known Keith for twelve years, and there is no one I’d rather be teaming up with to bring such visionary thinking to our strategy and product line at Passport.”

Dr. Chen joins Passport’s other advisory board members, Stephen Goldsmith, Former Deputy Mayor of New York City, former Mayor of Indianapolis and current Daniel Paul Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Akshay Pottathil, Co-Director of the Center for Information Convergence and Strategy at San Diego State University and Director of Digital Borders at BORDERPOL.

About Passport

Passport is the industry’s leading mobile technology solution specializing in enterprise business applications and payments for the public and private sector. Passport’s product lines–parking payments, transit payments, enforcement and permit management–collectively serve to deliver dynamic tools for agencies to better connect with their communities. Its services have been adopted by over 300 agencies on over 3,000 locations globally. Passport’s mission is to reduce operational complexity and deliver intelligent data to improve decision making for its clients.

Passport is backed by a group of investors, including Grotech Ventures, Relevance Capital, and MK Capital. For more information, please visit www.passportinc.com.