The ever-increasing rate of car use in settlements not only poses a challenge in terms of parking options, but also reduces the quality of life due to increased carbon dioxide emissions. Among the smart urban technologies, it is very necessary for local governments to develop smart public space monitoring solutions in order to achieve sustainability goals, a better quality of life, and a more livable living environment.
The advent of cars has brought unprecedented changes to the transportation industry, but in addition to the benefits, there are also some notable challenges that have gradually reached a level that requires urgent solutions. Such challenges include environmental damage, emissions, and noise, not to mention the increased number of road accidents and the economic problems associated with traffic jams, which have plagued most cities today. Thus, the maintenance of public spaces and the management of parking problems are particularly important for city managers. The appropriate IT system transforms the parking lots of settlements into more sustainable zones, especially in terms of reducing environmental pollution by reducing driving time, thus reducing street traffic and ensuring proper use of parking lot resources.
Since 1994, Sessionbase Kft. and its predecessor have been dealing with the development of information systems supporting public area supervision and other control work performed on public areas (parking control, surcharges, management of public cleanliness matters and personal surcharges). Accordingly, in recent years, a system has been created that covers the entire volume of street policing, public space surveillance, and parking control person handling and issuing additional fee permits.
Of course, the system includes a unified financial solution (with the implementation of full regulation management, VAT analytics, bank connection, unlimited number of cash registers and account number management), as well as a filing and document management system that has the appropriate accreditation from the state and regarding local government institutions.
The entire system has a number of external connection points – such as the National Mobile Payments Zrt., the Central Office of Public Administration and Electronic Public Services or the Hungarian National Chamber of Notaries – so each subsystem, or so-called specialist system, always turns to the given interface that it needs. accordingly, they also operate on the basis of centralized accounting.
The system also has an internal timer and execution module, which makes the existing machine decisions in the system, starts the right processes at the right time, we can also call it automating the handling of cases.
The corresponding data recording modules are also available for the individual specialist systems, so by using an average PDA (smartphone) and a portable printer, when the case arises, the event is registered electronically in real time, which can be seen immediately by the administrators and responsible managers in the central systems .
The system also has a customer window solution, which is available to users after a knowledge-based and a property-based identification procedure in accordance with the relevant legislation, so the security of the data in the system is guaranteed. As a result, customers can view their own transactions at any time, even from home, settle their debts, and submit complaints about a given transaction, thereby significantly reducing the work of customer services and background administration.
All processes, events and logs are logged in the system, which can be viewed from the interface with the appropriate authorization.
The system also includes a full-scale vehicle and person tracking system, which supports proper command and control with a map interface. Part of the entire system is a complete dispatcher support subsystem, which performs the issuing, checking, and logging of daily tasks supported by GIS.
“The big advantage of such complex systems is that, if necessary, the data of each specialist system can also be accessed by a staff member of another specialist system, so regulations can be established that, if appropriate, the customer comes to the customer service for the purpose of parking management, but it turns out that there is an outstanding fine case. Or other In this case, the customer visits the customer service in order to obtain a residential parking permit, but it turns out that he owes a parking surcharge. With this information, it is possible to decide what to do with the related matters in accordance with local regulations. Another advantage of meticulous data collection and analysis is that the the issuance of residential waiting permits and driving permits can be limited to small areas, so that ‘free parking’ affects a much smaller area, and local residents can also be provided with additional discounts due to the digitized interfaces,” said Zoltán Schäffer, head of Sessionbase.
In summary, a proper public space monitoring system brings positive changes for various urban stakeholders who, in one way or another, bear the burden of irregularly managed parking spaces. The right solution can help to create order and discipline in parking lots, optimize the use of time and space, support drivers and help parking facility operators and owners to maximize the use of available spaces and resources in a way that increases their income. , as well as improve the parking experience of customers.
