By, Arti Loftus
As vaccines begin to roll out and an end to the pandemic hopefully begins to appear in sight, car traffic in cities across America is set to substantially increase, and people will quickly return to public places with public parking areas.
While a return to normalcy is expected by most, the reality of it is even greater disarray than before in parking areas will more than likely follow the return to the public.
Cleverciti, a pioneer in high-tech solutions for outdoor and on-street parking detection, monitoring, and guidance, has come up with advanced smart city parking solutions to ensure a seamless return to normalcy for shoppers and commuters.
“Smart parking solutions can save up to 900,000 tons of harmful carbon emissions in Germany alone, equivalent to eliminating half of all domestic air travel.”
Headquartered in Munich, Germany, with offices in the United Kingdom, and Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., the company allows drivers to enjoy a smooth, stress-free parking experience, to increase revenue for local businesses and parking operations, and reduce traffic and environmentally harmful emissions. They achieve this through cutting-edge technology, such as the Cleverciti Circ, a 360-degree sign that wraps around lamp posts, that provides real-time guidance to available parking spaces.
The Circ connects with other Cleverciti technology, including AI-powered sensors, to determine real-time parking occupancy status.
“The Cleverciti Circ interacts seamlessly with the Cleverciti ecosystem, including larger Cleverciti Signs and Cleverciti Sensors, and can also display third-party data,” said David Parker, Chief Operating Officer at Cleverciti, when asked about the smart city technology. “Together, they form the perfect parking guidance system in any demanding environment, reducing congestion and emissions while increasing parking revenues.”
The smart city technology is specifically designed to transform the arrival experience for consumers from one of stress and annoyance to relaxation and ease. Drivers waste 6.8 billion hours annually searching for parking spots in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
Cleverciti technology introduces a hassle-free parking experience that eliminates the need to circle endlessly around parking lots looking for open spots. Local turn-by-turn guidance based on real-time data and smart parking solutions helps drivers avoid random circling and driving into fully occupied areas by placing local digital signage at critical points like intersections and entrances to parking aisles.
“Parking data generated by overhead sensors can be used locally on parking guidance signs and integrated seamlessly into apps, helping drivers find a space close to their destination with intelligent navigation on their mobile devices,” said Parker. “To make sure drivers enjoy the best possible arrival experience, smart parking not only helps them find a parking space quickly and easily, but it also offers additional services, such as dynamic reservation ahead of time and flexible payment options, making sure drivers enjoy the full convenience of smart parking every time.”
Smart city technology also benefits the businesses as much as the drivers, maximizing returns on parking assets. Hundreds of billions of dollars are lost every year in parking revenue, but Cleverciti’s technology helps parking asset owners and operators, cities, and civic authorities analyze and understand parking behaviors, ensuring they have all the parking data they need to maximize parking revenues.
Cleverciti smart city technology will also make sure that all parking spaces are filled up by helping drivers find out-of-the-way spots to avoid any consumer getting discouraged and leaving due to a lack of parking availability.
“In many cities, parking areas are a widely poorly-utilized asset whose full potential value is not well understood,” said Parker when asked about the potential value parking spaces hold. “Reliable data generated by smart parking technologies can help city officials understand and measure the use and value of each parking space. With data as a foundation, the spaces can be effectively managed and their use optimized, for example, by deploying dynamic pricing or repurposing certain spaces to loading zones during off-peak parking hours.”
Finally, smart city technology is beneficial to the environment because it is beneficial to people. Inner-city traffic is one of the only point-sources of emissions in a city, and roughly 30% of that traffic is from parking searches. Drivers circling around while looking for a free parking space are contributing greatly to the environmental pollution in any given location. By reducing the time it takes to find a parking spot, smart city technology helps reduce vehicle emissions and air pollution while mitigating some of the negative impacts vehicles have on the environment.
“Parking search traffic makes up approximately 30% of all traffic in urban areas, making it a major contributor to environmental pollution,” stated Parker when asked how Cleverciti technology is beneficial to the environment. “Smart parking solutions help drivers find available parking spaces more quickly and easily, and the amount of time drivers spend circling around unnecessarily can be reduced. A recent study has shown that smart parking solutions can save up to 900,000 tons of harmful carbon emissions in Germany alone, equivalent to eliminating half of all domestic air travel.”
Cleverciti’s smart city technology has already been deployed in more than 200 locations around the world, with plans to continue expanding and define the future of smart parking with innovative technologies.
Most recently, Cleverciti launched in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, U.S, providing turn-by-turn guidance with digital parking guidance signs to 4,500 spaces across the City of Redwood City.
“Like many U.S. cities, Redwood City is looking to support its core downtown businesses while providing residents and visitors door to destination service,” states Parker. “We are excited to work with the City of Redwood City to deliver aSmart Mobility solution that will achieve their objectives while improving quality of life by reducing congestion, minutes driven, and emissions.”
Parker is participating at The Frontier Conference, on a panel called, Emerging Digital Economies of Cities.
About the author: Arti Loftus is an experienced Information Technology specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the research, writing, and editing industry with many published articles under her belt. She is passionate about digital art, and concept art in particular. She has a love for all things fiction and fantasy ranging from TV shows to video games and spends a large amount of time drawing using nothing but her imagination. Arti has a BTEC ND in Computing and also a degree in Computing – Multimedia from the University of Hertfordshire. She lives in Hertfordshire, UK with her husband, teenage son and her cat named Khaleesi.
