246 | PARKING
More than just parking payment Technological developments are enabling automatic parking payment systems to carry out much more than their basic function, bringing significant benefits to the managers of the products Words | Luca Zanzon, El-tra Srl, Italy
In spite of all the problems in the world, the global economy appears to be continuing to push forward. Its growth is underpinned by technological developments and innovation. In the parking industry, the automatic pay station represents the key element in modern parking systems and reflects the evolution of the technology. It is very important that it includes all the main specifications requested from the market in terms of functionality, reliability and esthetics. But there are some extra features that are always more common on demanding shopping mall-type parking projects: • The ability to dispense RFID paper tickets or RFID cards for transport systems; • The potential for parking lots to act as an effective way of contributing to the reduction of city traffic and pollution through being set up as park-and-ride services and encouraging use of other modes of transport; • The ability to interact with end-users to supply additional services. In this instance, automatic pay stations act like a real kiosk to issue and update loyalty cards, update personal data, redeem points, load money on RFID/magnetic cards acting like electronic wallets, re-charge card, pay bills. All information accumulated in this way will allow the operator to know more about their customers and tailor offers to them to make sure their experience in the shopping mall or other type of establishment is positive and worth being repeated.
Learning more about customers The act of paying for parking becomes not just the exchange of money for a parking space, but also an incredibly useful opportunity to learn more of the habits of final customers, and so to market services or sales adapted to consumer behavior.
Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2018
The ELG9000 dispenses disposable RFID tickets (fanfold or roll), and can read and encode RFID cards inserted at the mouth
Such parking systems are very modern and are perfectly in line with the information society in which we live today. Converting the parking charges into data for more and more sponsors who are prepared to pay a small fee in exchange for precious customer information would be the obvious next step. This data has been available before, but this new approach, now possible thanks
to technological innovation, represents a smarter and more efficient way to improve end-user experience and at the same time increase revenues for parking operators. It will also increase turnover and revenue for all stores and businesses directly or indirectly involved with the parking structure. Italian company El-tra Srl is a recognized manufacturer of OEM motorized ticket and card solutions, and can count among
