Monitoring regulated reserved parking zones in Vic-en-Bigorre to promote the shopping zone.
To improve the monitoring and management of parking in Vic-en-Bigorre and to promote the central shopping zone by increasing vehicle rotation.
This small French town with an area of 32 km² and a population of almost 5,500 inhabitants was suffering from a lack of parking spaces in the city center. The few spots that did exist near the shopping zone, coupled with the large number of cars which occupied these spots for long periods of time, were causing problems for the retailers in the zone, as well as upsetting citizens.
Even though there were already regulated parking zones, monitoring them was difficult and ineffective. The main challenge was to reverse this situation: to prevent the occupancy of spots for long periods of time and to implement a system to ensure compliance with the rules.
The project implemented in Vic-en-Bigorre entailed installing 114 sensors, in addition to a comprehensive parking management system.
The proposal implemented in Vic-en-Bigorre consisted of limiting parking time in the spots located in the city center to two hours. If this period was exceeded, the vehicle’s owner was fined (with a fine set at €17).
To successfully implement the free shared parking system, the use of parking spots had to be regulated. To do so, U-Spot parking sensors were installed in 114 parking spaces, which came with a comprehensive parking management system and a mobile app to alert officers of infractions in real time and guide them to these vehicles.
- Better parking rotation and occupancy
- Higher officer productivity. Thanks to the alerts, vehicle-by-vehicle monitoring is not needed and officers can go directly to violations.
- Reduction in the traffic caused by searching for a parking spot.
- Stimulus of local retailers
- Improves environmental quality.
