How Can Smart Parking Systems Make Your Business Better?

If you’re in the parking business, efficiency in collecting revenues is your primary concern. However, even if you’re in another business that operates a parking facility as a supporting service that may not even produce revenue, eliminating unauthorized vehicles and keeping costs to a minimum is a top priority. But whether that facility produces revenue or not, having a staff is a strong demand on management from a financial and security point of view.

Automated parking systems can reduce or, in many cases, eliminate the following headaches associated with parking lots and garages:

1. Staff is overloaded or underutilized during some periods.
2. Unauthorized vehicles slip in, park free, and occupy space intended for law-abiding citizens.
3. Stolen or intentionally abandoned crime-related vehicles cause removal or enforcement expense and nuisance, not to mention the loss of reputation.
4. Reservations aren’t accurately administered.

How Can Smart Parking Systems Make Your Business Better?

These automated systems often called smart parking systems, come in many shapes and forms. One version highly relies on ANPR cameras produced by companies like Adaptive Recognition, a leader in this technology since 1991. With these solutions on board, you can make your parking garage or lot the hassle-free operation you’ve dreamed of.

This article will consider how these systems work and explore what they can do for your business. You’ll also see how one such solution is applied and where you can find more details about it.

Large Parking Facilities

In a large parking lot or, more likely in a city, a multi-level garage that operates for the sole purpose of profitably serving shoppers and busiest people like, injury lawyer, you’ve made a significant investment in the facility. Your return on that investment depends on maximizing revenue and reducing costs. With a smart parking system, you can create a positive experience for your customers and eliminate human involvement in most transactions.

Some of the major benefits of a smart parking system are as follows:

• Your system operates day-to-day with little if any human involvement. Your only operating costs are utilities, maintenance, and cleaning.
• Your customers enjoy an easy-in/easy-out hassle-free experience.
• Municipal traffic control officials and passing motorists have less congestion on the streets due to parkers entering your facility without delay.

In addition to the above, unauthorized parkers have no chance of entering your facility. Your systems can even be linked to a criminal database, so stolen or crime-related vehicles are denied entrance and reported to appropriate authorities.

Parkers Making Advance Reservations

Those who want a specific spot to be kept for them in the parking facility are usually required to enter their license plate number when they make the reservation. Once the plate data is in the relevant database, an ANPR camera reads their plate number when they arrive and compares it with the database. If there’s a match, they’re granted access through an automatic gate that’s raised when it receives a positive signal from the camera and the operating system.

Payment usually goes like this: if the reserver pays in advance for a certain amount of time and leaves within that time, the transaction is complete. If they overstay their reserved time, they’ll be charged for the excess time when they leave. This is how they make money. Alternatively, they may link a credit card if their stay time is uncertain when they make the reservation.

Parkers With Established Contracts or Other Ongoing Arrangements

In most facilities, some users have a monthly or longer contract to use the facility without limiting their parking time. If their plate numbers are entered into the smart parking system database, as mentioned earlier, they’re granted automatic access in the same way as those with “plain” reservations.

Often, the facility is linked to certain establishments where people rent or own space, such as an apartment or office, or work for an employer, with linked parking privileges. In that case, you and the owner, lessor, or seller of the space in question make the arrangement that suits you both, while the buyer, lessee, or employee of the space gets free parking privileges – in a physical and financial sense. Their plate number then goes into the local database or cloud-based system, and they’re granted access in the same manner as the others.

Non-Contractual/One-Time Parkers

The smart parking system works equally well for those who just park in your facility out of convenience for the day or a few hours and have no prior arrangement. When a car enters the lot, an ANPR camera reads its plate number and stores it temporarily in a database, along with the time it entered. When the vehicle exits, an ANPR camera reads its number and signals the operating system to calculate the charge based on the time spent in the facility. The driver can then pay with a credit card at a self-service pay station.

If someone uses the lot often but has no contract, the owner can go to a website and enter their plate number with a preferred payment method, so their charge is automatically deducted from their account.

The space available to casual parkers can be limited so that those to whom you have a contractual obligation will always have space available.

Hotel Tivoli Copenhagen: An Example

If your parking facility is connected with your hotel, mall, or other business like transportation business where many customers arrive by car, the efficiency concerns are similar to those we’ve already discussed. A smart parking system makes business more productive. Your smart parking system can link a parker’s license plate number to other automated conveniences to further enhance your customers’ experience.

Here’s the story of a large (678 rooms & conference spaces) hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, that exemplifies this opportunity. Their system uses Adaptive Recognition’s FreewayCAM ANPR camera linked to Carmen® ANPR software and integrated into Onepark’s smart parking system.

As you can see, installing a smart parking system to operate your parking facility with the least possible amount of day-to-day complexity is more than possible with the right technology chosen. The most capable of these systems rely on ANPR solutions to make the system serve you, your customers, and the public with minimum hassle.

Adaptive Recognition is a company that’s led the ANPR industry almost from its inception. Learn more about them and their products by visiting their website. Each page on their website includes a contact button to discuss your smart parking needs with their experts.