Golden River - Optimising car park usage in Canterbury
Location
UK, Canterbury
Application
Car park occupancy
Product
M680 & GPRS
The Problem
During peak shopping periods queues to City centre car parks lead to congestion issues with some car parks gridlocked whilst others just a short distance away were left with many free spaces. This lead to driver frustration, queuing and congestion within the City. Congestion also has a negative environmental impact, increasing the emissions from idling cars whilst waiting to find a parking space.
The Solution
Golden River designed a solution for real time data to interface with the Kent County Council UTMC system to calculate the occupancy of their car parks.
Data is collected at the entrances and exits of the car parks by the Golden River M680 GPRS. The M680 GPRS is a high precision, reliable roadside 4, 8 or 16 loop counter with an internal GPRS modem. The data is transmitted automatically every 5 minutes via GPRS and VPN to the Golden River in-station located in the Traffic Data Centre in the Kent County Council office where the occupancy of the car parks is calculated. This information is then sent via GPRS to VMS signs to direct drivers to car parks with spaces available.
Benefits
- Better use of the car parks by drivers
- Reduction in driver frustration
- Reduction of unnecessary congestion in the City centre
- Reduction of emissions produced from idling cars
Testimonial
John Fincher from Kent Highways Services commented: "Kent County Council and Canterbury City Council are very pleased with the car park system which will significantly reduce the volume of waiting cars and will help to reduce congestion in the city. This solution will also please the public who will be directed to car parks where they can be confident that there will be available spaces. We are very pleased by the professionalism used by Golden River to deliver this cost effective solution".