Comarch & Nedap Improve Parking in Warsaw

The city of Warsaw selected the Polish IT company Comarch to optimize parking in the streets of Warsaw. In this project in the capital city of Poland, Nedap partners up with Comarch for the occupancy detection of individual parking spaces, using the SENSIT bay-mounted sensor system. Almost 200 parking spaces at the Plac Konstytucji and in front of the Central Railway Station of Warsaw are monitored by smart parking technologies. Real-time parking information is available in the Comarch Smart City Parking software application. The project has been commissioned by Zarząd Dróg Miejskich (Municipal Road Authority).

Warsaw Capital City

With an estimated population of Warsaw metropolitan area 2.6 million people, Warsaw is the largest city in Poland. Besides that Warsaw is also one of the most-populous capital cities in the European Union which is developing and transforming rapidly into a modern city. Many skyscrapers are dominating the new city skyline, hosting public organizations as well as domestic and international private companies. Facing high levels of traffic congestion, the Warsaw city authorities are ambitious and investing on major ITS infrastructural changes, such as for public transportation, road infrastructure and on and off street parking.

Comarch Smart City Platform

To improve parking in the streets of Warsaw, the Polish company Comarch was selected by the city of Warsaw to introduce a smart parking platform. The technology behind this smart parking solution is based on Comarch’s Smart Parking system and a mobile application for inhabitants and visitors. This enables the system to collect information on the occupancy and vacancy of parking spots and to inform drivers in real time about the number of available parking spaces including navigation to the suggested available parking spot.

Besides that, Comarch offers a management and analytical platform on the parking infrastructure. This enables the municipal roads authority to obtain analytical data in the form of reports and summaries of key indicators and statistics on utilization of parking spaces. This will help the city authorities to make decisions concerning the city's future parking policy.

Parking Sensor Technology

As a part of this project, Nedap’s smart parking sensor system SENSIT were implemented to cover the parking spaces at the Plac Konstytucji.

Located in the historical heart of the city, the Plac Konstytucji is the major square in the Śródmieście district of Warsaw. Constructed on the Marszałkowska street, the Constitution Square is one of the busiest places in Warsaw city center. Vehicular traffic, pedestrians and public transportation services like buses, trams and metro lines are crossing each other. This Constitution Square contains a number of 110 off-street parking spaces that are situated outdoors. In this same project implementation Comarch monitored over 80 parking spaces in front of main railway station in the city center of Warsaw with their overhead camera-based sensor technology.

“In urban agglomerations looking for parking spaces is very time-consuming, especially in the city centre and business districts. The Parking Information System developed by Comarch is set to solve the problem,” says Wojciech Dec, Comarch Smart City Product Manager. “The comfort of being able to find a parking space faster is important to all drivers but it also matters to residents. The shorter the time taken to find a parking space the lower the emission of fumes. The traffic flow is also better as the risk of congestion and collisions is lowered,” adds Dec.

Accurate Vehicle Detection

At the Plac Konstytucji, Nedap’s SENSIT system presents the robustness and reliability of its double sensor technology and radio communication network. Nedap is the developer and manufacturer of SENSIT. This vehicle detection system consists of wireless bay-mounted sensors that detect in real-time whether or not a single parking bay is occupied and how long it has been occupied.

“It’s great to see the results of the parking solution in Warsaw. Using the dual-detection sensor technology, magnetic and infrared, combined with the intelligent software application, the SENSIT system ensures accurate vehicle detection measuring. From that software, the parking data is real-time integrated into the Smart City Parking platform of Comarch”, explains Ido Wentink, Business Development Manager at Nedap.

The testing phase of the project has been launched in August 2016 and were continued until the end of the year.

About Nedap

Nedap is the leading specialist in systems for vehicle identification, vehicle detection and vehicle access control. Readers, sensors and controllers optimize, monitor and control vehicle flows. With SENSIT, Nedap helps cities to become smart about their mobility. Nedap Identification Systems, part of Nedap N.V., is headquartered in the Netherlands and has offices in Europe, US, Middle East and Southeast Asia. Nedap designs and develops intelligent, sustainable technological solutions for themes that are relevant to the modern society. It is Nedap’s ambition to offer ‘Technology that Matters’.