Parking & Access Control

Automated parking offers optimised space utilisation and fewer damage complaints as David Crawford discovers. As cars become smarter, technology designed to make parking them more straightforward is developing in parallel. In turn, it is becoming clear that the places where vehicles spend much of their time will need to respond – more comprehensively than by supporting established aids such as smartphone-based parking location and reservation, or payment for time used.

Smarter parking can benefit city authorities and other road users as well as drivers looking for a space, argues Dr Graham Cookson. As witnessed by the recent announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show, the automotive industry continues to focus on the driving experience; moving from speed and handling towards safety and efficiency.

Castries, the capital city of Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, is set to begin installing parking terminals across the city as part of a new initiative by the Castries Constituencies Council (CCC), with the aim of improving safety and security in the city. The new parking terminals from UK manufacturer, Metric Group, are solar powered, accept both coin and banknotes and have a colour user interface screen. The solar powered terminals are in keeping with the island’s energy transition strategy in becoming r

Parkeon will be demonstrating its parking technology at Parkex in April at the NEC, Birmingham. On-street, Parkeon has transformed its Strada terminals into multi-services kiosks, enabling motorists and pedestrians to print out coupons redeemable at local retail outlets. City Connector utilises Parkeon’s terminal colour touch screen technology and internet connectivity to offer discount vouchers for shops and restaurants or special promotional offers for local attractions. Its MiniPark ANPR system is

Parking equipment manufacturer WPS has won a further landmark contract to provide its ParkAdvance technology for the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. ParkAdvance is a pay-on-foot system designed featuring a new IP-based operating system architecture that enables the parking system to simply and directly connect with multiple technologies being deployed in car parks both now and in the future.

The London Borough of Sutton has started the full replacement programme of its parking machines, upgrading them to Metric Elite LS terminals via the ESPO framework. 143 new parking terminals are being installed across the borough in both on- and off-street locations. Most of the on-street terminals are now solar powered as the old mains-powered METRIC Accent terminals are phased out. Twenty new mains powered machines are being installed in high usage areas. In off-street locations, the Elite LS termi

Parknav is an on-street parking solution that navigates drivers in real-time to available on-street parking in metropolitan areas without needing additional hardware. The system utilises a mix of data and crowdsourcing paired with machine learning, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to provide an optimised search route to navigate drivers to the nearest on-street parking space.

The City of San Diego, California, is partnering with GE to upgrade streetlights in a bid to reduce energy costs by 60 per cent as well as transform them into a connected digital network that can optimise parking and traffic, enhance public safety and track air quality. The City will be installing 3,200 smart sensor nodes that can use real-time anonymous sensor data to direct drivers to open parking spaces, help first responders during emergencies, track carbon emissions and identify intersections that c

The UK government has awarded funding of US$4.9 million (£4 million) for technology projects that will cut congestion, speed up journeys and clean up the environment. Nineteen councils across England will receive between US$62,000 (£50,000) US$374,000 (£300,000) each for their ideas to improve journeys through digital innovation. The government money will be spent on developing cutting edge technology such as apps and sensors which can be used to cut congestion, improve parking in city centres and ale

Swarco Parking & eMobility UK is exhibiting its range of business enabling solutions and software developed for the connected world from three of its business units at Parkex 2017. APT Skidata will demonstrate its SwappAccess mobile App that enables customers to plan, park and pay for on or off-street parking, along with SWEB.Validate, an electronic validation management hosted service. For system operators, it will showcase INS Reporting, the latest cloud-based reporting and management information syste