Parking systems for above-ground and underground paid parking lots.
Speaking about parking, it should be noted that it is a mandatory element of the infrastructure, for example, of a shopping center. The buyer will leave his money where he can park his car without problems, and then quickly find it. Without worrying about the fate of his iron horse. Meanwhile, even some Moscow malls do not have the required parking lots: in some places they are simply small, somewhere there is no navigation (try to find your car there). And in general, the construction of an office center, entertainment or retail facility (even with a small turnover) without its own parking lot in modern Russian conditions is an anachronism. In large cities, city authorities are even forced to interfere in these processes, an example being city intercepting parking lots. And for cities in the central and eastern zones of the country, cities with established dense historical development, the issue of parking is vital. Therefore, economic issues when choosing a parking lot at the design stage become paramount. In our opinion, it is advisable to begin the design with the development of a financial and investment model of the design object (parking, parking lot, car park).
Before starting work on the model, the intended purpose of the parking lot must be defined and client groups must be formed for it: primary and secondary. Traditionally, parking lots are divided into above-ground or underground, single-level or multi-level, closed or open.
Open parking lots are preferable due to their cost-effectiveness and attractiveness from the standpoint of organizing customer flows (for shopping and entertainment centers). However, much depends on the ratio of the development area and the size of the land allotment for the facility. Therefore, open parking lots cannot always be built due to lack of space.
Multi-level parking lots are built if the complex has several floors or in order to save space. In general, the client can get out at the level (floor of the building) he needs. But at the same time, the parking space ties him to a certain floor. It should be noted that the construction of parking lots of this type does not require significant costs, and daily maintenance costs are also low.
Underground parking is the most expensive. Based on average data (as of the middle of the current year), the cost of building this type of parking increases the investment burden by at least 0-300 per 1 sq. m of the total area of a shopping center-type facility.
According to a number of experts involved in real estate trade, for a shopping center one should proceed from the standard of 4 parking spaces per 100 sq. m of retail space, and for hypermarkets located outside the city limits — 6 parking spaces. It should be noted that one parking space is actually 30-35 sq. m, since this area includes the parking roadway, landscaping and many other small things that the designer should not forget about.
In the process of initial development of the financial and investment model, one should not forget about such important things as the concept of the facility (depends on the pool of retail operators, main tenants) and its location (if the target client group, for example, a shopping center, is concentrated within 5-15 minutes' walk from it).
As follows from the above, the organization of traffic in the parking lot requires navigation and/or the presence of traffic controllers. In this case, the following problems must be solved: the driver must immediately see the entrance to the parking lot or other levels (for a multi-level parking lot), be able to quickly find the exits to the shopping and entertainment areas of the facility, confidently find the abandoned car among many, make payment and leave the parking lot without significant problems. This presupposes the presence of additional, clearly distinguishable and unambiguously interpreted signs, segmentation of parking areas. We should not forget about the Russian backup signs for prohibitory signs — physical traffic restrictors.
Another important component of the modeling is ensuring safety requirements: the presence of blocking devices (such as barriers) at the entrance and exit, video monitoring of cars.
And finally, one of the most important conditions when choosing a financial and investment model: is the parking paid or free? Undoubtedly, free parking is more convenient for visitors, but, firstly, the operation of the parking requires costs (cleaning, security, traffic control), and secondly, free parking is attractive to non-target groups, which should also be taken into account when modeling. There are a number of ways out of this situation. The first is that a fee for using the parking is charged, but the date and time of entry, duration of stay, and time of exit are taken into account. For target groups of clients, the fee is either absent or minimal, and for non-target groups it is very high. For example, parking in a residential area with no other places to park cars at night. The problem with payment is solved at points of accepting money for staying in the parking lot using the so-called tariff plans. It should be noted that the tariff plan — the procedure for automatic calculation of payment is an effective method tested at a number of facilities. The second solution is to organize a system of discounts for target customer groups using simple and inexpensive equipment. For example, for visitors to entertainment areas and customers in retail tenant areas. Thus, the parking system should ensure the following functions:
Comprehensive management of parking operations
Management of short-term user parking
Management of regular customer parking
Voucher management
Calculation of parking fees
Cashless payments
Management of all external devices
Keeping an electronic log of all events on external devices of the parking system
Maintaining financial records and transferring them to external accounting and financial programs (such as 1C)
Maintaining attendance statistics
Tracking the use of short-term visitor cards, as well as regular customers
Reliable, duplicated storage of all data
Tracking emergency situations and announcing and transmitting alarm signals
Remote service and repair capabilities
Parking system equipment Scheidt & Bachmann (Germany)
The entry and exit barriers included in the system are intended solely for controlling the movement of regular cars and are not suitable for controlling pedestrian or bicycle traffic. The barriers are not intended to perform tasks to ensure increased security requirements or to prevent breakthroughs. The entry barrier is controlled from the entry terminal, and the exit barrier is controlled from the manual cash register.
The entry terminal is installed at the entry and is designed to control the operation of the entry barrier. It either reads a regular customer card or issues a card to temporary visitors to the parking lot.
The dimensions of the device housings meet the requirements for convenient execution of these functions.
Induction loops react to the presence of metal in their area of action, thereby identifying the car when it approaches the entry/exit terminals, and are also responsible for closing the barrier after the car has passed. They are a wire laid in several turns in the road surface and connected to a special detector device. Induction loops can also be used to determine the direction of movement of the car.
Parking systems SKIDATA (SKIDATA AG, Austria)
Parking systems SKIDATA AG maximally satisfy the requirements of their customers. They are actively used in airports, shopping centers, car parks, hotels, hospitals, exhibitions, stadiums, parks of culture and recreation.
SKIDATA automated systems almost completely eliminate the influence of the human factor, and also support and integrate with all types of ticket media: barcode, magnetic strip, RFID card, Print@Home. In addition, parking access can be carried out by scanning the car number or by detecting the identification tag on the windshield.
The possibility of using a flexible pricing system allows you to calculate the cost of parking depending on the hour and day of parking, its duration and the category of the client. High functionality of the software allows you to monitor the status of remote devices, accumulate diverse statistics and reports, and centrally manage several parking lots.
Automatic diagnostics and error monitoring allow you to maximally protect SKIDATA parking systems from failures.
Automatic parking system «Parktime» (KiS. Electronics, Russia)
The Parktime APS is designed to automate the operation of surface or underground parking, including automatic entry/exit control and calculation of the parking fee.
This parking system can serve both one-time car owners and regular customers.
A one-time customer presses a button and receives a parking card, while a regular customer places his card on the reader.
The system records the time of entry, recognizes the number and takes a photo of the car, after which it lets the car through. For convenience, a navigation system can be installed in the parking lot. The calculation of the cost of using the parking lot depends on the tariff: the system allows you to use several hundred different tariffs in one parking lot. In addition, the client can be given various discounts.
Additionally, height sensors can be installed in the parking lot to recognize the type of vehicle (truck, car, jeep) and link it to a specially set tariff.
The system uses the latest digital speakerphone, allowing you to instantly contact the parking operator in case of unforeseen circumstances.
Payment for parking services is made at the cash machine. A regular customer can use the «Electronic Wallet» service or purchase a subscription for a specified period. Payment can be made in cash or by bank card.
When leaving, the system checks the payment, compares the entry and exit photos, the state number and a number of other parameters. The system provides the ability to divide the parking area into multi-tariff zones, each of which can accommodate certain groups of customers.
Automatic parking system Parklite (FAAC, Italy)
This is one of the latest developments of FAAC, which has specialized in the production of equipment for parking automation, as well as barriers and gate drives for over 20 years. The company's various solutions allow it to create a parking system that meets today's market requirements, has a wide range of functional capabilities and is capable of operating reliably in any climate zones of Russia. Parklite can be used to service both one-time and regular customers, provides flexibility in choosing tariffs and supports video verification and intercom communication between the cashier and the customer.
The main components of the Parklite system are ticket issuing devices, contactless card and barcode readers that support traffic light and information board control functions. The system also includes a cash register with Russified software that can be retrofitted with a card reader (work with a fiscal registrar is possible).
Paper tickets with a bar code are used to service one-time car owners, and regular visitors can use proximity or magnetic cards, which are divided into 3 categories by payment type: subscription, debit and nominal. At the same time, the Parklite system supports the possibility of overdraft, crediting the card with an amount different from the payment amount, programming the departure time after payment, the amount of the fine for losing a ticket, as well as various discounts.
The system can divide the parking into zones with independent pricing and accounting of available spaces. In addition, Parklite can control the passage of vehicles through certain zones and supports the function of prohibiting repeated passage, assigned for each card separately. The video verification module, included in the parking system software, provides visual control of the entry and exit of vehicles with recording of the corresponding frames and the ability to confirm entry/exit by the operator.
AFAPARK Parking Navigation Systems (AFAPARK, France)
AFAPARK is a parking management system. The system allows you to create comfortable and safe conditions for parking users and reduces the time it takes to find a free space to a minimum. The search for free spaces takes place in three stages. When approaching the parking lot, the system notifies you of the total number of free spaces. When entering the parking lot further, a light board installed in each sector will tell you about the number of free spaces or their absence. And when entering the sector, a bright light signaling will indicate a free space. The signaling device is clearly visible regardless of the direction of movement.
Vehicle presence sensors allow you to see the whole picture in real time. The parking space announcement system will inform the driver of additional information — for example, the parking space number, parking cost, advertising information. When a parking space is free, the system automatically turns off the lighting and ventilation.
Each device of the system can be an autonomous and functionally independent unit, which allows it to be installed in already automated parking lots.
In addition to comfort for customers, the AFAPARK system provides full control over the current situation.
Automation systems for car parking VECTOR_AP («Eliks», Russia)
The developers have applied a new approach to building an automated car parking system, where individual terminals of the system (entry, exit, automatic cash register, etc.) are not connected to each other by communication lines.
In this case, the VECTOR 3000 system uses Mifare tokens as identifiers for one-time visitors. This is a plastic token with a diameter of 32 mm, inside which there is a chip and an antenna. Thanks to this, information can be repeatedly written and read onto the token. Cards are also used in the VECTOR 3000 system, but for regular users. The advantage of using tokens is that the card issuing device (dispenser) usually has a capacity of no more than 500 cards, some models — up to 1000.
Cards must be neatly stacked in a special cassette. The dispenser requires constant qualified maintenance.
The token storage capacity of the VECTOR 3000 system is about 2000 tokens. Tokens can be simply poured into a special container, which is easily installed in the entry stand, which ensures easy recharging. Such a device has a long service life and does not require special maintenance.
Along with the new VECTOR 3000 system, the VECTOR 2000 network system continues to be released, which has video identification capabilities, the generation of a large number of reports, real-time monitoring and other functional capabilities.