Finding badly parked cars in parking spaces is a common problem in Spain, both in public and private parking lots, as well as on public roads. In addition to vehicles that stay too long double-parked or parked in places where they are not authorized to do so because they are reserved for specific groups or are for loading and unloading. Therefore, it is necessary to provide solutions to ensure compliance with parking regulations on public roads.
Whatever the situation and desires of drivers, in Spain there are regulations for parking vehicles, legislation that must be complied with. We are referring to the places where you can park and the correct way to do it, that is, without impeding the circulation of vehicles and pedestrians on the sidewalks…
The General Traffic Regulations of the Directorate General of Traffic (DGT) mention, to be exact, the term parking, which occurs when the vehicle is voluntarily immobilized for more than two minutes, while a stop has a duration of less than two minutes, with the driver inside the vehicle.
Without stopping to explain the correct way to park -including the signaling of the maneuver-, at Urbiotica we do want to address the important issue of enforcing on-street parking rules. What technological and digital solutions exist for enforcement in urban mobility?
Technologies to comply with on-street parking regulations
In Spain there are different types of places where parking is allowed: on-street parking, public parking lots or regulated parking zones. For each of these, there are different technologies to ensure compliance with on-street parking regulations, and in some cases they are managed by public administrations – and in others by concessionary or private companies.
As a company specialized in Smart Parking and intelligent urban mobility solutions, we want to explain the solutions that can be used to control the correct parking and use of parking spaces in cities. These are applications that complement free parking space detection systems and parking guidance systems.
The control, in fact, is carried out by means of several technologies, including sensors or cameras that detect the entry and exit of vehicles from the parking spaces. They are highly effective in detecting vehicles that are not authorized to occupy a parking space, that is, they launch digital warnings and alerts when a driver parks without being authorized to do so or exceeds the time allotted when paying for its use.
In addition, we mentioned a very important point: the control of parking spaces must always be based on respect for data protection and the privacy of drivers.
Urban parking guidance
On-street parking control
Most parking takes place in the parking spaces available on public roads, the parking spaces on the streets next to the sidewalks. In fact, a real problem is that there is very little space for parking in cities, to which must be added the fraudulent use of reserved parking spaces.
It is in this area of on-street parking where infractions such as leaving the car in a double row without the driver inside for more than two minutes, not paying for parking in a paid parking space or exceeding the time allowed in these same parking spaces occur.
How to maintain on-street parking control efficiently? There are several ways, such as implementing parking control systems to ensure compliance with parking regulations. These solutions reduce fraud and control the correct use of parking spaces for loading and unloading, and other casuistry that we will mention later.
Control of regulated parking
Secondly, we would like to talk about the control of regulated parking through mobile applications and web platforms. Regulated parking zones such as the Regulated Parking Service (SER) in Madrid are methods of management, regulation and control in certain areas of the public road. With them, city councils and other companies aim to rationalize and make the use of public space and vehicle parking compatible.
Therefore, it is a method that tries to organize mobility in cities in a rational way by using, for example, parking meters to pay for parking in a space through a personalized service by license plate, as well as by differentiating these spaces with a specific color -for example, blue lines- at specific times of the day.
The digitization of regulated parking control is an effective solution for this management. Currently, there are solutions that include functionalities and activity alerts to warn parking attendants when fraudulent or incorrect use of parking spaces occurs, moving from a control model based on predefined routes to a control model by zones and based on alerts. Particularly innovative is the management of payment per parking space, which allows to know in which parking space each user parks and to generate alerts per parking space when the regulations are not complied with.
We also highlight time-limited parking space control systems, which are very useful for towns with less than 500 parking spaces. In these cases, these solutions favor urban mobility when it does not make sense to have paid parking spaces because their operating cost is higher than the income obtained from their use.
Control of reserved seats
Some spaces are reserved for specific groups, as is the case with parking spaces reserved for persons with reduced mobility. parking spaces reserved for people with reduced mobility (PRM) or those dedicated to loading and unloading for transport or goods companies. ( How can the correct use of these spaces be guaranteed? Thanks to solutions that include the installation of sensors and communication networks with warnings and alerts when fraudulent or unauthorized use occurs.
Occupancy detection sensors are anonymous, they do not store personal information of drivers or vehicles, they only detect if there are parked cars that do not have PRM cards or do not belong to companies authorized to unload and unload goods. What happens when an unauthorized driver uses a reserved parking space? An alert is sent to the surveillance service of the parking lot in question, which makes it possible to know the infractions instantly with a high degree of reliability.
With intelligent platforms that manage data and information in real time, these technological innovations reduce parking violations. And, in the end, they end up being a powerful deterrent to unauthorized users.
The Future of On-Street Parking Enforcement
What has been explained in this article is an example of the fact that, on occasions when civility and respect from drivers is lacking, there are technological tools that facilitate the control of compliance with the rules. In this particular case, those related to on-street parking to ensure proper management of parking lots and to improve urban mobility.
At Urbiotica, we have developed different applications and solutions that address this issue, specifically aimed at the control of regulated parking lots. The aim of Parkctrl is to help parking managers to maintain a good, rational and, in part, dissuasive order, to ensure that the rules are respected and to encourage the correct coexistence of drivers of all types of vehicles. Thus, technology and the latest solutions based on advanced communications, the Internet of Things (IoT) and detection performed by detection sensors or cameras is basic to ensure compliance with on-street parking rules.
