Greeks use rude stickers to punish illegal parking
September 3, 2008
Pedestrians frustrated by congested streets and unruly parking in Greek cities are using sarcastic stickers to retaliate against inconsiderate motorists. |
“I am an ass! I park wherever I like,” say the palm-sized labels showing a donkey driving a car, which are plastered on car windows by the Streetpanthers citizens’ group.
“We are fed up with people who feel they can park wherever they want and block pedestrians,” said Grigoris Mavrakis, 48, head of the group and founder www . streetpanthers . gr site.
“One car can make life difficult for hundreds of people,” he told Reuters.
Cars left on wheelchair ramps, pedestrian crossings and sidewalks are common in Athens and other cities, where parking places and traffic police are hard to find.
Streetpanthers said they wanted to embarrass offenders and make it difficult to scrape the sticker off.
Mavrakis said that, since the protest was launched in 2006, hundreds of thousands of stickers had been sold via the website.
“You feel better when you stick it on,” Mavrakis said. “We’ve had some harsh reactions from drivers … but the most serious protests were from citizens for insulting animals.”
Source: http://www.reuters.com
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Reading’s New Car Park
September 2, 2008
Reading’s new multi-storey car park in Chatham Place not only provides 600 new spaces, but also offers advanced levels of safety, security and customer service. The car park – owned and operated by Q-Park – is a 10-floor car park with natural wood louvre panels made from sustainable sources on the outside and bright, attractive stainless steel lattice mesh. Inside, Q-Park’s specially trained and uniformed staff operate the most modern technology to make parking a pleasant experience, not a chore. The new car park is: · Manned 24 hours a day by uniformed ‘hosts’ in conjunction with 24/7 secure entry and exit technology · Designed and built to make maximum use of natural lighting, using open aspects, bright reflective surfaces and environmentally-friendly lighting systems that maintain safe, bright internal areas for drivers and passengers, but without high energy usage or costs · Offers a wide range of payment options, starting at £1 per hour, with season, weekly and events tickets available: and payment can be by coins or notes, credit or debit cards · Incorporates the latest CCTV security surveillance covering entries and exits and all floors, and this is linked to a 24/7 manned control centre · Provides additional customer services including the loan of baby buggies during the period that customers’ cars are parked, and umbrellas; and · Offers services such as a shoe polishing machine, battery ‘jump start’ kit, and tyre compressor/inflator. Parking is made easy through the use of special floor coating, which is not only smooth and comfortable to drive and walk on, but also allows the large parking bays to be clearly and colourfully marked. Ramps to and from the different levels are wide and shallow, and the construction design eliminates intrusive or obstructive columns – both of which help make parking fast and simple. Tom Crisp, Lead Councillor for Planning and Transport at Reading Borough Council, said: “When you consider the car park that once stood at this site, this is a vast improvement. In contrast with the old, grey concrete structure, this is a good example of a car park designed to the highest standards, both in terms of external appearance, but also in terms of a customer safety and the facilities available to drivers on site.” Car park charges are highly competitive: Parking time Tariff Up to 1 hour £1.00 Up to 2 hours £2.00 Up to 4 hours £3.00 Up to 6 hours £7.00 Up to 12 hours £11.00 Up to 24 hours £12.00 Overnight (6pm – 8pm) £2.00 The new Chatham Place car park is part of a £250 million mixed-used development in Reading town centre by Muse Developments (formerly AMEC). This first phase is primarily residential with over 300 private and shared ownership apartments as well as shops and new areas of public realm. It is a partnership development with Reading Borough Council and the first phase is due for completion in spring 2009.
Source: http://www.parking-net.com
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ANPR – Number Plate Recognition Technology
July 16, 2008
Recent advances in Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technologies have lead to a greater acceptance of the technology by car-park operators. The new digital ANPR technologies present greater read rates than traditional CCTV/PC based technologies and offer far greater flexibility in deployment and customization than previously available.
By attaching a unique signature to every vehicle entering and exiting a car park the potential of a car-park management system is greatly enhanced. The signature widely used by vehicle identification technologies is usually the registration number displayed on the front and rear of the vehicle. To robustly read this plate in all weather conditions, day and night and to increase the ability of a system to read dirty plates, Alpha Vision Design has developed a stand alone digital ANPR station that can extract the registration number and automatically present the number for processing.
The applications of ANPR technologies can be used for tolling, police enforcement, journey time analysis, average speed violation and access control. Within the car parking domain, most car park operators use ANPR technology as a medium to locate lost vehicles, to calculate occupancy times and to dramatically decrease the revenue loss associated with ticket fraud.
ANPR is also finding favour within non-supervised car parks as a means to control access via a white list. This white list contains a list of vehicles with known access rights. Suitable for hotel, apartment and company car parks, this negates the use of disposable paper tickets and wireless FOBs. Companies with large fleets are introducing ANPR as a cost effective method of tracking their vehicles throughout their depots. Large supermarkets and chains are also beginning to utilize the information obtained from their car-parks as a way of highlighting demographic patterns with a view to maximizing profits.
For any traffic management system to be a success, the read rate must exceed 99%. Traditionally most operators shied away from ANPR when they discovered that their true read rates were rarely above 60%. In real world applications, this was the limit, not due to poor software but the result of using conventional CCTV systems to obtain the images. CCTV technology is 50 years old and does not lend itself well to computer recognition systems.
The common processing core for CCTV based ANPR systems is a PC. CCTV/PC based systems are not robust and are unacceptably high maintenance. To counter this, Alpha Vision Design has developed a self-contained ANPR system designed specifically for the car parking industry. This system includes an integrated illuminator, high resolution digital camera, digital analyser and on-board relays, all contained in one standard security housing. Only mounting and a power cable is required – an industry first!
A high resolution camera obtains images that are over sixteen times larger in area size than CCTV images. Combined with a wider field of view, now only one camera is required to capture both the registration plate and an overview of the vehicle, and vehicle placement within a lane is no longer an issue which leads to greater capture rates.
The camera /computer unit can in real time adjust the exposure, gain, and the integrated on-board IR lighting to maximise the contrast and readability of the registration plate, including dirty plates, variations in plate reflectivity, strong headlamps and adverse weather conditions. This cannot be done with CCTV/PC based ANPR systems.
The setup is easy and is only required once per site, with no re-configuration necessary even after a power outage as the system will reboot automatically. On a typical 800 bay car-park, the system can also store up to five years of data, capturing and time stamping an image of every vehicle entering and exiting the facility. The system is true Plug & Play and can directly control a parking barrier via its on-board database and integrated relays. For configuration, simply use any standard web browser to manage the ANPR station – no third party software is required to manage the entire ANPR network.
Our standard systems are shipped in three versions. We have an ANPR station designed for operating at a 10 meter and 25 meter range, and a system for high speed traffic applications. All systems are pre configured and only mounting is required. The ANPR stations can act stand alone or integrate with an existing parking entry ticket/gate system. For remote applications, the ANPR station can also be configured to run over GPRS, TCP/IP and WIFI Networks.
Source: http://www.parkingireland.ie
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New Online Car Park Reservation System
July 16, 2008
A dream has now become true also at Berlin-Schönefeld: Going by car to the airport, no stress of looking for a parking lot, a beneficial price, and a short distance to the departure terminal.
Like for the airline companies, where by booking in time you automatically get a chance for a fair-priced ticket, you will now have a possibility to use a beneficial car park in close vicinity to the terminal, by early reservation / booking.
On 1st July 2008, the online car park reservation system has commenced its start-up on the website of Berlins airports, in cooperation with APCOA.
The passenger can now comfortably book a parking lot via Internet on the car parks P1 and P6 as well as in the multi-storey car park P4 of the airport Berlin-Schönefeld and pay in advance. Reservation systems have been used by Scheidt & Bachmann also on other airports like Stuttgart Airport (Germany), Boston Logan Airport (USA) etc. but this new reservation system is more strictly dividing functioning and free design capacity. It is embedded in the own homepage.
Straightforward in dependence on the reservation time and advance booking time, a discount computer integrated in the system guarantees a fair price to the final customer.
During paying in the online portal by credit card, ec/Maestro card or by the PayPal method, the passenger also selects his access medium (credit card or ec/Maestro card). Entry and exit are performed without the ticket by the access medium selected. Paying at the automatic pay station is omitted because the customer gets the voucher on the parking fee posted by E-mail, thanks to the reservation system. All relevant information details such as parking time, parking lot, etc. are derived from the reservation confirmation. The availability of a free parking lot will be ensured by the reservation allotment integrated in the parking system. This is the reason that it may happen that the car park gets the occupation status Full although there might be vacant parking lot. These vacant lots are provided for the reservations.
This shows that early reservation has benefits only: fair prices, attractive offers, no stress of car park search, and a guaranteed vacant parking lot. All of these functions are available to the operator, without any further manual adaptation or acceptance of reservations by phone or fax.
What is the technical method to realize online reservation? By selection of the reservation period, a request is directed to the server of the parking system at the Airport Berlin-Schönefeld, where the basic tariff stored in the system is determined. For every parking period desired, it is possible to leave a certain discount product, which depending on contingency and in consideration of the reservation period, the time of reservation and number of reservations of the customer determines the individual tariff. This reservation system is a platform for car park booking at all locations connected. A special feature of this online system is the freedom of web design. Via the SOAP server interface, the reservation system has been integrated directly into the customers own web site. As there are no other windows opening in the browser, the functioning capacities of advertising banners will be maintained. This reservation feature can be perfectly integrated into the web sites of cooperating partners, as e.g. travel agencies. Additional special conditions can be awarded to these partners via the discount module.
In the back end, the management of the online payment portals is also supplemented by the administration of all reservation master data, as well as all reservations existing in the system. Apart from this, the allotment can be controlled on-site, and the difference counting integrated in the system regularly considers all reservations left in the system, via the dynamic parking lot control. By means of the contingency control it can be determined how many parking lots shall be reserved for future reservations. Thereby limited temporary campaigns to utilize free capacities can be planned and performed via the discount module.
Source: http://www.parking-net.com
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ACS and MasterCard Worldwide Introduce Contactless Payments to Parking Areas at Major U.S. Airports
July 14, 2008
Customers will use MasterCard PayPass to ‘Tap & Go™ ’ and Quickly Exit Busy Airport Parking Lots
Dallas, Texas, June 12, 2007–Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (NYSE: ACS) today announced that its airport parking applications in North America will begin accepting MasterCard® PayPass™ contactless payments. ACS is the leader in large airport parking systems, with more than 20 current installations at the nation’s busiest airports.
MasterCard PayPass is a fast, cashless payment option that enables ACS customers to pay for parking simply by tapping their PayPass-enabled MasterCard card or device on a PayPass reader. ACS will begin to implement PayPass at selected, existing customer sites this summer. PayPass readers are anticipated to be installed in four to six airport sites by the end of 2007. ACS’ airport revenue control solutions will continue to accept traditional magnetic-stripe payment cards PayPass’along with this contactless payment technology and will continue to work with all payment card providers.
“This enhancement to airport parking is driven by MasterCard ability to make purchases more convenient for customers by helping them move through lines more quickly and easily. After a long trip no one wants to be stuck in slow lines when exiting airport parking,” said T.J. Sharkey, Group Head, Merchant Sales, U.S. Commerce Development, MasterCard Worldwide. “ACS is an innovative and proven provider of best-in-class technology solutions, making it an ideal partner for MasterCard to improve the experience for busy airport travelers.”
With MasterCard PayPass, consumers no longer need to fumble for cash and coins or swipe a card for purchases. With the PayPass option, customers do not have to sign receipts for purchases under $25, which further speeds the payment process. In addition, under MasterCard’s Quick Payment Service (QPS) program, no signature is required to complete a purchase and a receipt is optional for transactions up to $50 at parking garages.
“MasterCard’s selection of ACS to expand MasterCard PayPass acceptance to airport parking facilities demonstrates our focus to simplify our customers’ lives by providing innovative alternatives,” said Michael Huerta, Managing Director of ACS Transportation Solutions. “Airport parking is an ideal setting for contactless payments because this technology streamlines a sometimes time-consuming activity for clients who frequently do not have time to spare.”
ACS offers a wide range of transportation solutions, including public transit agency, toll collection agency and car park operator solutions that rationalize and automate revenue collection. A high service level optimizes revenue intake, while user-friendly tools enhance the customer experience. ACS solutions can be seamlessly integrated into existing environments and are geared for the requirements of the future. At ACS, transport infrastructure operators can find a complete range of products and systems for fare collection, parking and toll collection. The “one-stop shopping” principle enhances tailored solutions and long-term investment protection.
About MasterCard PayPass
MasterCard PayPass is ideal for traditional cash-heavy environments where speed is essential, and has led the way in bringing contactless technology to consumer categories such as quick serve restaurants, drug stores, gas stations, vending machines, convenience stores, sports arenas, movie theaters, transit systems and parking garages. As of 1Q 2007, there are over 14 million PayPass cards and devices in the market, and PayPass is currently accepted globally at 51,000 merchant locations, including participating 7- Eleven, CVS, McDonald’s, Regal Entertainment Group theaters and many others. PayPass is also accepted at numerous football and baseball stadiums. For more information about MasterCard PayPass and a full list of participating merchants, visit http://www.mastercard.com/PayPass.
About MasterCard Worldwide
MasterCard Worldwide advances global commerce by providing a critical economic link among financial institutions, businesses, cardholders and merchants worldwide. As a franchisor, processor and advisor, MasterCard develops and markets payment solutions, processes over 16 billion transactions each year, and provides industry-leading analysis and consulting services to financial institution customers and merchants. Through its family of brands, including MasterCard®, Maestro® and Cirrus®, MasterCard serves consumers and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. For more information go to http://www.mastercard.com.
About ACS
ACS, a global FORTUNE 500 company with 58,000 people supporting client operations reaching more than 100 countries, provides business process outsourcing and information technology solutions to world-class commercial and government clients. The company’s Class A common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ACS.” ACS makes technology work. Visit ACS on the Internet at http://www.acs-inc.com
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