Skip to main content

Swarco Traffic implements VMS parking guidance system at major retail centre

Swarco Traffic has installed a new parking guidance system at one of Northern Ireland’s premier shopping centres, Abbey Centre, Belfast. A combination of seven variable message signs (VMS) and seven car parking count sensors were commissioned and installed as part of the contract. The technologies combine to alert visitors to where spaces are available, helping to reduce congestion and improve convenience. Abbey Centre attracts some 115,000 visitors every week, and provides 1,265 free car parking spaces. Th
May 26, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
129 Swarco Traffic has installed a new parking guidance system at one of Northern Ireland’s premier shopping centres, Abbey Centre, Belfast.


A combination of seven variable message signs (VMS) and seven car parking count sensors were commissioned and installed as part of the contract. The technologies combine to alert visitors to where spaces are available, helping to reduce congestion and improve convenience. Abbey Centre attracts some 115,000 visitors every week, and provides 1,265 free car parking spaces.

The signs and sensors were strategically installed both outside and inside the car park to direct drivers appropriately. The sensors also automatically report to the relevant VMS on how many spaces are available at each of the centre’s car parks.

Additionally, Swarco implemented its PGS Management software that communicates directly to the centre’s management via GPRS. Key strategic information is made available to inform the client’s decision making, and ensuring they are aware of the centre’s peak times, so that the messages displayed can be amended accordingly.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Imtech receives significant traffic technology orders
    January 15, 2013
    European technical services provider Royal Imtech (Imtech) has been awarded a series of contracts worth US$57.5 million to upgrade the current traffic infrastructure in Stockholm, Moscow, Dublin and Copenhagen, as well as providing the technical infrastructure in a double-deck tunnel in Maastricht, Holland. The company will implement a Motorway Traffic Management (MTM) system on the E18 motorway in Sweden, an important road link in the northern part of Stockholm, featuring two tunnels and used by 50,000 veh
  • Lindsay focuses on safety with Road Zipper barrier
    October 6, 2015
    You can’t miss Lindsay Transportation Solutions’ here at the ITS World Congress: the company’s Road Zipper System creates a flexible, positive traffic barrier between opposing lanes of traffic or between motorists and construction work zones while managing congestion.
  • ITS advancement lays beyond benefit-cost analysis
    May 29, 2013
    Shelley Row, former Director of the US Department of Transportation’s ITS Joint Program Office, gives her views on the way forward for the industry. We, as intelligent transportation system (ITS) proponents and engineers, tend to be overly fixated on benefit-cost data. We want decisions to be made on logical grounds for which benefit-cost calculations are optimal. While benefit-cost data is necessary, it is not always sufficient. We can learn from our history where we see three broad groups of ITS deploymen
  • Data holds the key to combating VRU casualties
    May 8, 2015
    Accident analysis software can help authorities identify common causes and make best use of their budgets, as Will Baron explains. More than 1.2 million people die on the world’s roads each year and according to the World Health Organisation, half of these are pedestrians and vulnerable road users (those whose vehicle does not have a protective shell, such as motorcyclists and cyclists). While much has been done to improve road safety and cut the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads, a great d