The misuse of loading and unloading areas is problem caused by drivers who park in them improperly, which has a very negative impact on urban mobility. Beyond that, it directly involves the inappropriate, fraudulent use of areas intended for specific vehicles transporting goods or companies that receive supplies or materials each day.
It is therefore necessary for the different players responsible for managing parking in cities to join forces with the private companies involved in the same work. The main reason is to develop solutions to monitor loading and unloading areas to be sure they are used properly. Doing so will have positive consequences for both companies and urban mobility, which will be more orderly and sustainable.
These applications are an option available to help city councils and companies manage regulated parking spaces much more efficiently, leading to much more effective monitoring and greater productivity in these areas.
We at Urbiotica, the company that has developed parking control solutions for loading and unloading areas, want to do our part to deal with this challenge to efficient urban mobility.
Loading and Unloading
Difficulties managing loading and unloading areas
The constant growth in city traffic is magnified by less parking space due to the spread of green areas, pedestrian zones and bicycle lanes. The available parking spots are increasingly used for services such as loading and unloading, as well as for specific uses such as people with reduced mobility and electric vehicles. This scenario makes it challenging to efficiently manage loading and unloading zones in urban areas. When drivers find themselves with fewer parking options, they end up parking in these areas, blocking the vehicles actually authorized to do so.
Inappropriate parking and blocking the access to parking spots come with another factor affecting efficiency, namely the disruption of parking for loading and unloading operations by unauthorized vehicles. This has a negative impact on companies’ logistics, the productive use of time and the attainment of objectives. At a broader level, this problem produces a chain effect that affects urban mobility, since vehicles without a permit take spots intended for transport or logistics company employees, forcing them to park in the wrong places or to double-park, which is an obstacle to traffic flow.
Given these challenges of sustainable mobility in cities, the misuse of loading and unloading areas has to be addressed. The question arises: What technological solutions can be applied to guarantee their proper and efficient use?
How to put an end to the misuse of loading and unloading areas
To answer the question above, the best way to prevent the fraudulent use of loading and unloading zones by unauthorized drivers is technology. Specifically, there are loading and unloading monitoring solutions to improve urban logistics and detect unauthorized vehicles in these areas. Let us explain these two methods.
Guidance solutions for deliveries and alerts to traffic officers when violations occur
First of all, there are guidance solutions such as FastPrk, which provide information on the occupation of loading and unloading areas. This helps delivery trucks quickly find available spaces for loading and unloading. It also lowers the amount of time wasted looking for spots and improves efficiency in logistics operations. Furthermore, other solutions such as ParkCtrl are used to monitor parking time and verify drivers’ authorization, promoting fluid rotation in these loading and unloading areas.
This improves urban mobility and increases the delivery and logistics companies’ productivity. The benefits of using these solutions include a 28% drop in search time, a 16% drop in route time and a 12.4% drop in distance travelled.
The solution also detects violations in real time and sends alerts to traffic officers when an unauthorized vehicle parks or when the time allowed is exceeded, which frees up available places and avoids double-parking and chaos. The ParkCtrl solution allows city councils and companies to ensure compliance with regulated parking regulations by centralizing information and optimizing the traffic officers’ work.
Detection of single-spot occupancy using IoT sensors or artificial intelligence
Secondly, there are solutions based on single-spot detection systems using U-Spot parking sensors or artificial intelligence through cameras and U-Spot VISIO software. They detect vehicles entering and leaving each parking spot in real time, thereby lowering the number of violations in the use of loading and unloading zones in cities.
The solutions allow for precise, effective monitoring of parking spot users, guaranteeing compliance with parking regulations while respecting driver privacy following the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Combined with the mobile application, the software can identify whether or not a driver is authorized to park in the loading and unloading zone.
One of the competitive advantages of this solution is that is sends alerts when there are violations. The traffic officers are notified when an unauthorized user parks in a spot or if they exceed the allowed time, and they can then go directly to the spot instead of making the usual vehicle-to-vehicle monitoring, which wastes time. This streamlines the process and increases efficiency.
The future of logistics management in cities
In this article, we have tried to explain how to solve one of the issues that affects sustainable mobility in cities through the application of advanced, reliable technologies that protect the privacy and data of all drivers.
It is clear that we are facing a multifaceted challenge: improving urban mobility to lower air pollution; promoting the appropriate use of areas for loading and unloading operations, with the component of ethics and individual responsibility of unauthorized drivers; and developing increasingly advanced technologies that respect citizens’ rights while helping to boost business productivity.
In conclusion, the future of logistics management in cities and the end of the misuse of loading and unloading areas involves these technological solutions that transmit information and data in real time, Cloud data management and advanced communication networks.