Photo montage: Focus Electronic
Because Sundsvall municipality also wants to improve its city center environment and traffic flows, it is introducing a parking guidance system. The system comprises 24 signs that will guide road users to four major parking installations in the city center. This will make it quicker and easier to park and will mean better use is made of the parking spaces available. Signs and counting systems will be connected to Infracontrol Online, which will control and monitor everything via GPRS.
Magnus Elfving at the highways department in Sundsvall’s city planning office, tells us about the system:
“Following a public tender, Focus Electronic was awarded the purchase of the system consisting of signs, counting systems and Infracontrol’s cloud service as the central function. We feel this is a good solution, as it’s a tried-and-tested service used by many municipalities and it also has the advantage of being easy to connect more signs and parking installations to come the day we need to extend the system.”
Tried-and-tested solution
An increasing number of municipalities are introducing parking guidance systems to improve traffic flows and the environment. It is a good solution since a living city center both presupposes and generates road traffic, and by helping road users quickly and easily find a vacant space we can keep the city center vibrant while also reducing traffic.
Sundsvall municipality has also chosen to invest in this solution and the system has been purchased from Focus Electronic. During the fall they were busy producing signs, counting systems and preparing for installation on site. According to Milos Kovacevic, Project Manager at Focus Electronic, commissioning is scheduled to start in the middle of November and thus far everything is moving along as it should.
“We’ve supplied a great number of systems of this type up until now, so we’ve got a pretty good handle on what needs to be done. Signs, counting systems and Infracontrol’s central system are all tried-and-tested components. We’re busy installing everything on site in Sundsvall right now and we expect to have the system in place and in operation before Christmas shopping picks up speed.
The real-time status of connected signs and parking installations is presented on a map (shown here Eskilstuna).
Easily accessible parking information
Jimmy Waern, Project Manager at Infracontrol, tells us that the solution they are continuing to develop is tried-and-tested as it’s been used in around 15 cities.
He explains briefly how it all works:
“The parking guidance system counts the number of vehicles passing in and out of the parking installations using magnetic loops in the entrances and exits. The information is gathered by Infracontrol Online which then displays the number of vacant spaces on the variable message signs located in the traffic system.”
He goes on to explain that the information is easily accessible at Infracontrol Online, which makes it easy to retrieve and present on e.g. the municipality’s website or various types of parking apps.
Flexible, cellular service
One of the biggest advantages with Infracontrol Online is that the service is easy to adapt to changing needs. Wireless communication and simple configuration functions make it easy to remove or add more signs and parking installations whenever needed. What’s more, it’s easy to access all of the functions in the system:
“All user functions are accessed via the internet or smartphone,” Jimmy Waern tells us. “This applies to operations monitoring, which transmits alarms to personnel if something is not working as it should, and also for setting parameters such as the number of occupied spaces in a parking facility.”
