Japanese Parking Lots Accept Contactless Payment
July 12, 2008
Japanese parking lot operators are beginning to accept contactless payments as card issuers continue to try to make inroads in Japan’s cash-based consumer economy. More and more pay-by-hour lots are accepting payment via contactless cards or mobile phones equipped with contactless chips, according to the Nikkei news service. Nippon Parking Development Co., which runs about 100 lots in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan, will accept iD, the contactless credit brand launched by mobile network operator NTT DoCoMo and credit card company Sumitomo Mitsui, the Nikkei report says. Another parking-lot operator, Park 24 Co., accepts three contactless electronic purses: Edy, Suica e-money and PiTaPa. The latter two e-purses are mainly used to cover transit fares in and around Tokyo and Osaka, respectively. Overall, Japanese consumers make more than 90% of their purchases in cash, according to DoCoMo estimates. To capture a piece of this market, card issuers are supporting a total of five major brands of contactless credit and electronic-cash programs, with more on the way. Consumers can make contactless payments at thousands of convenience stores and other merchant locations, but few of the card-reading terminals are interoperable, which threatens to confuse consumers. Masao Nakamura, president of DoCoMo, told the Nikkei Marketing Journal this week that his company is now working on a contactless point-of-sale terminal that can accept all three brands of contactless credit in Japan.
Source:Â http://www.n-p-d.co.jp/en/index.html
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Parking problems set to be eased with multi-storey car park in Lisburn, United Kingdom
July 10, 2008
The project, which will see the creation of around 272 parking spaces, could finally bring an end to the streets surrounding the station being blocked up by passengers who have nowhere else to park.
Local councillors have long called for a solution to the parking problems at the station and they attended a meeting this week with Translink representatives who said they had plans for a new ‘park and ride’ initiative which could see the car park in use by the end of next year.
Mr Crawford commented, “Translink and Northern Ireland Railways announced details of their plans to build a three storey car park at The Sidings end of Antrim Street at a meeting earlier this week.
“Obviously there have been parking problems at the train station and with the number of commuters increasing, this has been much-needed.
“They are hoping to develop a ‘park and ride’ facility as there is no longer room for people to park their cars in Lisburn. Each day there are 70 or 80 cars parked along the North Circular Road. In October the over 60s will be eligible to travel for free which will increase the number of commuters further.
“There are still politics to sort out but the car park will have a capacity of approximately 272. Translink have said that Lisburn is now the number one priority for the park and ride facility out of all the stations in Northern Ireland and they hope to have this ready for the end of next year, provided there are no undue delays with the Planning Service.”
A Translink spokesperson said: “Translink are examining Park and Ride options in many areas including Lisburn. No final decisions have been made.”
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Car Park Maths Project
July 6, 2008
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Do you have problems setting an interesting and new maths project, that all the students in your class, whatever their level of ability is, can take part in? This project to plan a new car park layout, gained the interest of the students and provided many lines of investigation that stretched the more able, while allowing the others to utilise their basic maths. I used it with GCSE students but it can easily be adapted to other levels.
This idea was thought up when the college car park was being extended and changed and it certainly engaged the students and provided for some novel and interesting ideas from the students.
Drawing a Scale Plan
The students will need to measure the car park, paths and buildings. They will need to calculate the angles to ensure the lines meet up correctly. Encourage a legend to be added to the plan to show trees, bushes, paths, doors etc
Set a scale that the plan should be drawn to, this will enable you to easily check the results at the start against a master plan. This will involve the use of ratios to calculate the length of the lines of the paper.
Alternatively, this could be a combined exercise for the whole class, producing a single scale plan that can be copied and provided as the starting point of the project.
Data Gathering
The students will need to obtain data to decide how big to make their car park spaces. There are various types of data gathering and surveys that can be undertaken and used in the project. Some examples are given below, but don’t let this list limit your imagination.
- The size of spaces in a number of car parks in the local area.
- The size of various types of cars
- The popularity of the different size cars
- The room need to open car doors
Presenting Data
There are various standard ways to present the data, for the car park spaces and the car park sizes. Some examples are specified below for the car data, but there are many more possibilities. The students can take this as far as their capabilities allow.
- Group the car data in to a frequency table. Calculate the percentages to show the most popular sizing groups.
- Visually present the grouped data in bar charts
- Use a scatter plot to show the relationship between length and width. There should be a strong correlation.
- The popularity of cars sizes could be presented as a ratio.
Calculating Statistics
Everyone should be able to attempt to calculate the median, mode and mean averages for the length and width of the spaces and the cars. A good extension is to calculate further measures such as the standard deviation and percentiles.
Making Decisions from Data
The point of the data gathering is to determine what size the car park space needs to be. They are trying to fit in the maximum number of spaces, while still allowing the car park to be used effectively. This is the interesting part to see what the students will think of.
- do the students remember that you need to open and close the doors
- have they allowed room to drive in and out of spaces
- what inventive ideas have they come up with. One report handed in had three recommended car space sizes, one for large cars, one for small cars and one for disabled drivers who need to open their doors wide.
Extension Study
There are many further directions that this study can be taken to. A few ideas are below, but encourage your students use their imagination
- Usage Surveys: Surveying the car use in the area to determine the usage to ensure the car park has enough spaces.
- Financial: Would it be possible to charge for the use of the car park, how much you would expect to make, how much it would cost to operate, would people pay.
- Trigonometry: One student measured the turning circle of a few cars and use trigonometry to calculate the optimum turning space needed to get in and out of a car park space
Marking
You are really marking this project on the accuracy, applicability and the difficulty employed in the various techniques, but do allow a portion for the finished result.
- Are there a reasonable number of spaces?
- Is it possible to get in and out of you space and car without scraping the car next to it.
This study was very popular with the students and the reports varied from fairly basic to some advanced maths according to the ability of the student. While they had some guidance and ideas, they were encouraged to think up more for themselves and they certainly did this.
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The Problem With Present Parking Control
June 29, 2008
EFFECTIVE TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT IS COSTLY!
There can be little doubt that parking in most towns, cities, institutions, terminals and stadiums is a major isssue. For local authorities who are having to accomodate an ever increasing number of vehicles and reduced resources, the task of effective traffic management is daunting indeed. A solution that not only satisfies a variety of parking needs but remains cost effective and generates additional income, becomes imperative.
DEPENDANCE UPON ON/OFF STREET GENERATED FUNDS!
Many towns, cities and businesses rely heavily on revenue generated by way of on/off street parking and the mandate is to effectively administrate a parking system that optimizes use of available space while maximizing revenue generation through effective enforcement. The goal of these facilites is to minimize parking congestion, illegal parking, encourage rapid turnover, and generate additonal income.
FREE PARKING ISN’T FREE!
Free parking represents lost revenue to the parking provider, which contributes to higher local taxes or operating costs that can be mitigated in the case of private parking providers. Free parking encourages “Long Term Parking”, inconveniencing shoppers and citizens resulting in lost business for retailers operating in densely populated areas.
CURRENT PARKING METER SYSTEMS SUFFER FROM BREAKAGE AND THEFTS!
Many of the parking control systems currently in use cost substantial sums of money to implement and maintain. Just providing for mechanical or electronically metered infrastructure is too costly for many smaller towns and entities like universities; forcing them to forego the new profit centers paid parking would otherwise provide them. Even large municipalities are finding that the cost/benefit of meters is becoming questionable especially when the other attendant problems of meter use are considered. The mechanical and electronic equipment (meters) are particularly susceptible to a substantial amount of “leakage” through uncollected parking fees, whether to mechanical failure, theft, damage, tampering with on-street equipment, undetected overstay and other breaches of parking controls.
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West Palm Beach City Parking System, Florida, USA
June 29, 2008
In October 2006 Mayor Frankel of the City of West Palm Beach, Florida, US, announced the introduction of a new, innovative city parking system. The system, which came into effect at the start of November 2006, involves the payment for parking by using a mobile phone to make a call.
“We are one of the first cities in the nation to offer this service to motorists, and the only city to offer it to our customers free of charge.”Mayor Frankel said: “This new parking system will offer a great convenience for people who work, live, shop, and play in downtown West Palm Beach… This system will make it easier than ever to pay for parking at meters, and we’re excited to be able to offer it to our residents and visitors.”
The system is called the Electronic Parking Payment System or EPPS. Sue Olley, Director of Parking Systems, said: “This is an innovative, state-of-the-art way to pay for parking… We are one of the first cities in the nation to offer this service to motorists, and the only city in the nation to offer it to our customers free of charge.”
THE SYSTEM
The EPPS pay-by-cellphone system allows motorists to pay for parking meters in the downtown area by using their cellphone (caller ID must be enabled on the phone) rather than using spare change. Motorists must first register for the system; registration is free and there is no transaction fee.
After registering for a free account (giving personal information, a credit card number and the car’s license plate number), all the motorist has to do to pay for parking is to call in from their cellphone and enter a parking meter ID number, which is located on the meter.
The system continues the parking time until it is told to stop, or until the maximum time allowed for the parking meter has been reached (this depends upon the meter). Computers, equipped with an electronic record of the parking fee schedules associated with that meter, then charge the correct amount to the credit card.
To pay for more time, simply call the number again. The payment system uses CallerID to identify the parking spot (meter id#). When the motorist is finally ready to leave, another call ends the billing and generates an electronic receipt that can be sent to a cell phone or to a pre-registered email address (for expense and tax claims).
Parking enforcement officers use hand-held systems (wirelessly enabled Palm Treos) provided by Sprint-Nextel to monitor the process. Enforcement officers see which meters have been paid by cellphone. No special application is required to run on the enforcement devices.
The new payment system is part of a wider reform of the parking system, which will see parking meters in areas of downtown West Palm Beach being free after 7pm and parking in city-owned parking garages being free after 10pm. The Mayor’s office has stated that there will be enhanced security in all city-owned parking lots and garages following the reform.
CONTRACTORS
The system was developed and introduced by New Parking Inc. New Parking Inc is a Calgary-based company using its own proprietary software and existing advanced wireless technologies to automate many parking industry operations, starting with payments and enforcement. The company’s first application is the Electronic Parking Payment System (EPPS).
New Parking uses leading edge technologies, and so instead of pre-recorded voice files – so common with interactive telephone systems – they use ‘TTS’ also known as Text-to-Speech technology, where the voice heard is generated by a computer in the real time.
It has many advantages, such as the customer can be told what parking meter number they were parked at. The parking system is supported by the city’s parking meter management software, which is WinEMU and Cell Parking supplied by MacKay Meters. The management system provides full audit control and overall system reconciliation.
“The programme had 520 transactions in just the first two weeks of November, surpassing the entire month’s goal in just 14 days.”POPULARITY OF THE SYSTEM
The city set a goal of having 400 pay-by-cellphone transactions in the month of November. The programme had 520 transactions in just the first two weeks of November, surpassing the entire month’s goal in just 14 days.
The first month ended with 1,300 transactions. The second month finished at 1,700 transactions, with repeat users accounting for more than half of the transactions. So the trend can be seen of the system gaining credibility and use with the parking motorist.
INSTALLATION
Because of the simplicity of the system the costs to implement it were minimal. Sue Olley said: “We had to relabel each meter to provide clear space identity; purchase three wirelessly enabled Palm Treos (three were donated); and do some manual data entry to activate site locations in the Cell Parking and WinEMU parking meter management systems.
“Total cost for implementation of Cell Parking on the system was approximately $5,000. Ongoing costs to the city are minimal and directly related to use of the system.”
Future initiatives with the Cell Parking programme will include on-street validations, text messages for expiring meters and a tell-a-friend promotion.
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