The city of Siegburg is one of the first municipalities to enter the world of free-flow parking, starting with 4 of its 6 car parks: Bachstr. 1a (Parkzentrum RHEIN SIEG FORUM), Scheerengasse 5 (Parkzentrum Holzgasse), Mahrstr. 1 (Tiefgarage Facharztzentrum) and Theodor-Heuss-Str. 2 (Parkzentrum Kaiserstrasse).
Around these garages are a hospital, the Rhein Siegburg event conference center, a retirement center, and the city center, with around 1,000 parking spaces. The biggest garage, Rhein Sieg Forum, has 21,000 short-term parkers and 2,000 long-term parkers every month.
Challenge
Parking garages were analog and “old school”. Each one was separate from the other. Each parking garage had a person to monitor the entrances and exits during all times (including rain and snow).
Siegburg wanted to create a connected system in which all parking garages were linked for easier monitoring, security and control procedures and to facilitate long-term parkers' switching between garages.
Solution
LPR-based Free-Flow Ticketless Parking! : Provided by Scheidt & Bachmann, this system allows customers to use their vehicle's license plate (instead of a ticket) as Identification for billing and security when parking at these garages.
This new system allows customers to pay whenever is most convenient for them, whether it be during their time in the garage at a pay machine or online via Smart Web pay, within 48 hours.
All three free-flow parking garages are linked to each other by the parking management software, functioning as one distributed parking.
Connected to the Scheidt & Bachmann Parking System, 16 LPR cameras were installed among the three garages.
To ensure that license plates were correctly read even in hard weather conditions (such as snow), two cameras per lane were placed, one for front capture and the other for rear capture.
Results
The New Parking Control Center helps staff to monitor and control all three parking facilities, allowing for human personnel reduction and extending service hours.
Users of these three garages at Siegburg now experience totally seamless traffic flow due to the significant reduction in traffic jams. Also, Paper Tickets and all the related inconveniences (expenses, residues, lost tickets problems) are long gone history.
This upgrade makes a perfect example of how Ticketless Parking systems bring sustainability, efficiency, and convenience.