248 | 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.
Big Data Mining Analytics and statistics
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 ń, 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 ń’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
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Parking access
Groups and tariffs
Payment and bills
Billing and invoicing
Reservations
Ad hoc discounts
Remote control
Access control
Lighting
Remote configuration
Automatic pay stations
LPR, CCTV
Remote recovery
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
Terminals
Ultrasonic sensors
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 ź (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.