The future of parking

The future of parking systems

Future parking systems will comprise fully integrated functions – including parking management – in smart buildings, and they will have the capacity to manage complex solutions in the most intuitive way – in mobile apps and smartphones

Words | Nikolaus Hübner, Polchip, Poland

The CarFlow parking management system, created by Polchip, uses the latest technological, IT and communications solutions from a variety of fields in order to provide the best user experience – from the point of view of the owner of the investment project, to the parking or building administrator, and to every single driver.

A spectrum of integration possibilities

The cornerstone to the efficient operation of a modern parking system is the ability to integrate it with a technological and business environment, such as the building’s automation or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. One example of integration with the access control system is the CarFlow installation in the parking lot of a large Polish university, where the system of entry permits is based on data collected from an external, that is, university-owned database of 20,000 staff and students. Operation is performed automatically via license plate recognition (LPR).

CarFlow software’s extensive integration capabilities, resulting from open system architecture, have been used during its installation as part of an intelligent transportation system (ITS) in Pozna´n, one of the major agglomerations in Poland, with one million inhabitants. The CarFlow system has been installed there in four park-and-ride facilities, and has been integrated with the city parking information system and parking-spot reservation system. All of Pozna´n’s ITS parking lots are managed via a central server. Thanks to this solution, drivers receive real-time parking information and are automatically directed to a designated parking lot. They can also reserve a parking

Big Data Mining

Analytics and statistics

Parking access

Payment and bills

Reservations

Groups and tariffs

Billing and invoicing

Ad hoc discounts Remote control

Remote configuration

Remote recovery

Access control

Automatic pay stations

Terminals Lighting

LPR, CCTV

Ultrasonic sensors

space in advance. Similar functions may be supported in the near future for self-parking cars, and in several years for autonomous cars.

A flexible and customized service

In the CarFlow system, static code was replaced with a custom event-driven engine, which allowed the system to be customized to suit individual parking-lot processes without the need for software changes. Dashboard content management is based on roles, and therefore users have the freedom to define the layout and content of their desktop. A practical example of this application is the Technical University in Łód´z (the third largest city in Poland), where the parking lot staff can access basic functions, including a preview of the equipment status and the option of manually raising the barrier, whereas the tariffs and other elements of the system are managed by the system administrator.

The management of complex parking systems and parking lot networks is also facilitated and enhanced by the latest web technologies, which permit dynamic response of several interface elements to data changes across multiple users’ application windows.

Multisite parking management in one administration center provides convenience for the user – for example by servicing a single customer account across a whole network of parking lots, and also for the administration – for instance, through global tariff management and creating sales policies for customer groups across the network.

Thanks to the system’s responsiveness, parking management can be carried out via mobile devices.

Cloud solutions and process automation

Parking system management software may be made available in the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Using cloud solutions with a central repository makes it possible to store and retrieve the configuration of individual parking equipment units as well as the entire management system from the central server. As a result, the resumption of operation, the installation of new equipment, and the development of the system by adding new functionalities, are all performed smoothly and in an automated way.

The most significant advances anticipated in the development of parking systems include further, enhanced automation and increased system complexity (catering for automated cars, biometric identification of drivers, further automation of payments), coupled with increased personalization and customization, and a greater importance of value-added services for end users. The open architecture of software, the readiness for technology adaptations from a variety of areas – which forms the foundation of systems such as CarFlow – seems to be the key feature of modern parking systems. n

Opposite:

The parking management processes of CarFlow

Below: The

dashboard of the CarFlow system, which shows an example of the integration of external CCTV