Libelium's IoT Technology Installed at the Most Emblematic Hotel in Madrid

Libelium's IoT parking technology is helping one of the biggest hotels in the center of Madrid to optimize the performance of its parking spaces. In its first year of activity, an average of 2,500 people a day have visited its 360° terrace-viewpoint. Placed on the 27th floor, its glass walkway at a height of more than 100 meters challenges the vertigo of the visitors. Since August 2019, its rooms have also welcomed 130,000 people, and now it's one of the capital's landmarks.

Located in a completely renovated, emblematic building, the hotel has almost 100 parking spaces across two floors. Due to its location in the nerve center of leisure, commerce, and business in Madrid, these facilities are available to both guests and outsiders.

The company responsible for the hotel surveillance services, Prosegur SIS Spain, chose Libelium IoT technology to provide a control system for hotel parking occupancy levels that allows real-time monitoring and occupation forecasting.

“Prosegur generates added value to the surveillance services through innovative technology”, says Antonio Enrique Salas, who leads the area of innovation, engineering, and support for special projects in Prosegur SIS Spain. In fact, this leading multinational security company has been developing innovative surveillance services with IoT technology.

The real challenge of this smart parking project was to know in real-time the occupation of the hotel’s parking lots and guarantee the safety of the vehicles of both the guests and outsiders. This was achieved by the implementation of 100 Libelium parking nodes which send the data to the control panel via LoRaWAN communication protocol using two Multitech gateways, one for each garage floor.

Through a simple web interface, developed by Libelium’s partner Tap Consultoría, the occupation level is shown in real-time. This way, it is possible to assign free places according to the type of vehicle, selecting the specific place, and assigning the necessary days and hours to the end-user.

The main objective of the IoT platform is the management of the parking lots in the hotel and the users that utilize the spaces in different formats: temporary use, reserved spaces for special occasions, and assignment.

Then, the system contemplates two types of end-users: users with assigned spaces and temporary visitors.

• In the first case, for the person who has a fixed place assigned to their vehicle, their space will always be marked as assigned (in orange). When the node detects the vehicle, it sends the information to the panel where a red sign marks the space.
• In the second case, temporary users must be previously registered in the system to request the reservation and use of a space for a certain period of time. The parking lot manager must validate this request and, once it has been validated, the space is reserved on the parking for this period. If it is denied, the space will be available.

Since the control panel includes an analytical area, the manager can view the temporary occupation data and the use of the different clients, parking lots, zones, and spaces. It is also possible to collect information about the time of use.

The administration staff at the hotel reception assign the places to the users. In this way, the management of the parking lot is centralized, fulfilling one of the requirements of the project. This minimizes the infrastructure and improves usability.

“In cities like Madrid where the environmental impact of traffic is so high, putting private parking spaces at the service of citizens is a priority“, highlights Alicia Asín, Libelium’s CEO, praising the hotel initiative to obtain the maximum performance from its parking facilities.

About Libelium

Libelium designs and manufactures wireless sensor network devices so that system integrators, engineering, and consultancy companies can deliver reliable Internet of Things (IoT), M2M, and Smart Cities solutions with minimum time to market.

Over 2,000 developers from 115 countries in companies ranging from startups to universities to large international corporations have adopted Libelium’s hardware and software technology for projects in North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe.