Parking & Access Control

David Crawford parallel parks with innovations in two continents. Surveys of US cities indicate that drivers searching for parking can account for up to 37% of all urban traffic congestion. A 2011 study by IBM of 20 cities around the world found that nearly six out of ten drivers had abandoned their search for a parking space at least once; while motorists generally spent on average 20 minutes looking for a sought-after spot.

The city of Delft in the Netherlands is using Q-Free’s Intrada ALPR automatic number plate recognition software, combined with the ScanGenius mobile scanner from ARVOO to enforce parking regulations in the city, in a concept developed by Dutch company Taxameter Centrale. Drivers register their vehicle registration number with the parking authorities via the city website or at local payment stations. Six ALPR cameras in the ScanGenius rooftop box scan the registration numbers of parked vehicles, process the

Wellington City Council in New Zealand has begun to trial Smart Parking’s bay sensor technology with the installation of an initial 72 sensors. On completion of a successful trial, which is scheduled to run to the end of April, the council plans a US$1.05 million rollout of 4,000 sensors across the inner city streets. The parking solution will also include Smart Parking’s SmartApp which will allow motorists to identify streets with available bays and avoid driving around searching for a spot on roads which

Nedap’s parking solution for the Swiss city of Zug utilises its Sensit in-ground wireless parking bay sensors to provide real-time occupancy information, which is displayed on dynamic messages signs to guide drivers to available spaces. The new system was integrated with the parking systems of Nedap partners Hectronic and Swarco and enables the city’s parking capacity to be enforced effectively.

The Australian city of Adelaide, which has embarked on a 30-year urban development plan, is piloting Xerox’s new Mobility Analytics Platform (MAP) to improve its public transport services by analysing people flows between different sectors of the city. The recently-introduced analytics platform analyses the anonymous data created by the daily transportation and ticket-buying habits of millions of commuters and produces a new city-wide picture of transportation operations including adherence to schedules

Swarco has deployed what it says is the most customer-friendly parking system in Linköping, Sweden. The system utilises Swarco’s latest solution in hands-free parking, SWAPPACCESS, which provides quick access to the car park via the integration of contactless cards and licence plate recognition. Drivers with a SWAPPACCESS account can download an app to their mobile phone which gives details of available parking spaces and provides contactless parking payment. At car parks with barriers, the licen

Inverclyde Council has selected solar-powered parking terminals from Parkeon to help manage growing visitor numbers in Greenock, resulting from a major town centre investment and re-development programme. The local authority has specified Parkeon’s environmentally-friendly Strada Transfer terminals to help deliver a low carbon parking strategy that will boost economic activity by easing traffic congestion. The natural energy source of the coin-only Strada Transfer terminals means there is no need f

Cubic Transportation Systems has joined the Smart Cities Council, a coalition of industry thought leaders, innovators and practitioners dedicated to improving the liveability, workability and sustainability of the world’s cities. A booming global population puts pressure on cities facing the inevitable question of how to manage personal travel within geographic and infrastructure constraints. Cubic enables greater integration across all modes of travel by leveraging data to generate predictive, personali

His daily quest to find a parking space gave Amir Ehsani Zonouz, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA, the incentive to look for an effective solution, leading to him winning the inaugural Siemens Mobility IDEA (Improving Design and Engineering for All) Contest. Zonouz proposed using quadcopters, or drones, which can quickly find unoccupied parking spaces, identify the shortest path to the closest free spot and immediately guide the driver to the space using a mobile app or direct

According to a new market research report Parking Management Market by Solution (Parking Software, On-Street Parking, Off-Street Parking, Access Control, Security and Surveillance, Parking Fee and Revenue Management, Parking Enforcement and Permit Management) - Global forecast to 2019, published by MarketsandMarkets, the global parking management market is expected to grow from US$5.0 billion in 2014 to US$9.2 billion by 2019, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.8 per cent. The global parking m