aspects of journey planning –
booking, routing, online payment,
access to buildings/facilities, and
(increasingly allied to parking) vehicle
charging.
“Users want an at-the-fingertips,
paperless experience which can adapt
on the move,” Souders continues. “They
want access to specific parts of a venue
nearest to their final destination
– and if they can’t have that, they’ll
go elsewhere, leading to increased
congestion and reduced revenues.”
Data and sharing
Successful smart parking strategies
help address congestion issues and
work as business enablers. They
improve environmental performance,
public health and quality of life.
In such an environment data is
king but it has to be accurate and
timely. Parking managers don’t just
need to have capacity; they have to be
able to guarantee the right
capacity at the right places
and times. They need a
dashboard that tells them
what’s going on at a glance,
and which can push out realtime
parking information
that scheme users can and
will trust.
That, says Souders, implies several
things. “At the sharp end, it requires
accurate count, classification and
identification capabilities. These
include tag readers, vision systems
and ANPR/ALPR. In the back office,
it requires top-quality analytics and
| Smart Parking
Opening doors with open platforms
A smart parking solution that is technology agnostic, and therefore
able to utilise existing hardware, helps to keep costs down
Easton Town Center is a
combined indoor/outdoor
retail and leisure complex
in Columbus, Ohio whose 240+
outlets attract roughly 30
million visitors per year.
The Center’s visitor experience
was suffering because of issues
with gathering data from across
more than 9,000 parking spaces.
To address this, new sensor
technology was added to the
existing and an open-standards,
Cloud-based data platform from
All Traffic Solutions (ATS) was
implemented.
Easton’s management team
now has a dashboard that
provides real-time information
on systems’ statuses and
performance. Analytics provide
highly accurate information
on peak volumes and capacity
trends, and – as drivers are
able to rely on the information
they are given – the visitor
experience is much improved.
“A positive parking
experience is a big factor in
attracting repeat business. The
new smart parking solution
increases revenue realisation
the ability to make sense of what’s
going on and what’s about to happen
– predictive planning is crucial. It
also means being able to pull in data
from other organisations.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all. Yes,
cookie-cutter solutions are valid for
simple applications, but no one vendor
can provide a ‘complete’ solution
straight from the box. Procurement is
a partnership process and it’s important
for a buyer to get what they need.
“Dialogue is essential and open
standards and protocols are a must.
There’s next to no reason, in this day
and age, to be investing in
proprietary solutions and risking the
inflexibility and expense of vendor
both from the parking function
and the complex as a whole,”
says Jennifer Peterson,
Easton’s chief executive.
“It’s enabled us to
significantly improve parking
performance for minimal
outlay. The non-intrusiveness
of the new detection
technology and the ability
to re-use existing, systems
kept costs down and reduced
disruption. That’s another
important factor in maintaining
the customer experience and
a good public profile.”
lock-in. Open standards-based
solutions don’t just enable future
upgrades and expansion, they can
also be brought in later to bring
disparate systems together.” (See
Opening doors with open platforms.)
Communication
Dealing with openness from an
institutional perspective can be
more tricky. Data is often coveted –
organisations work hard to gather
it and it often costs them a lot of
money; it defines their USPs and
reasons for being; and simply
‘giving it away’ (as they see it)
isn’t a natural action for many.
There are also fears over security
of data, particularly personal data.
These are ill-founded as it is easy to
anonymise data. Anonymised data
is used to track crowd movements
and determine public transport
capacity needs, for instance, and
in many ways the tolling sector
has already successfully addressed
The new smart parking solution
increases revenue realisation
both from the parking function
and the complex as a whole
Jennifer Peterson, chief executive, Easton Town Center
Above: Easton Town
Center, a shopping
complex in Columbus,
Ohio, is currently
undergoing a US$500
million expansion and
redevelopment, with
smart parking as an
integral part
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March/April 2020 Traffic Technology International
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