Kortrijk receives Smart City Award

The city of Kortrijk is awarded as Smart City as result of the implementation of intelligent “Shop & Go” short-stay parking bays. The Smart City Award is an initiative of the technology federation Agoria and the Belfius bank in Belgium. In the Park & Go zone a wireless parking sensor is applied at every single parking space. These floor mounted sensors, an innovative solution from Nedap, detect in real-time whether or not a single parking bay is occupied and how long it has been occupied.

The Smart City Award is an initiative of the technology federation Agoria and the Belfius bank in Belgium. The aim is to explore how to realize the city of the future; a sustainable smart operating city.  The industry is ready to implement solutions to develop the city of tomorrow in urban related segments, such as mobility, energy, healthcare and transportation. With the Smart City Award, Agoria and Belfius bank want to draw attention to cities and municipalities who have started or carried out a smart city project. From a total of 19 cities and municipalities who have initiated a Smart City project, the jury selected 5 nominees. Eventually, a jury of 7 independent professionals decided to award Kortrijk for the recently implemented Shop & Go parking bays.

Kortrijk introduced innovative “Shop & Go” parking bays in its city centre last year. Visitors who need to run a quick errand or suppliers who are delivering packages are able to use these short-stay parking bays. The Shop & Go zones, equipped with Nedap’s wireless parking sensor system SENSIT, offer these drivers 30 minutes of parking free of charge. This results in less congestion, reduction of emissions and safer streets and thus a more attractive city for visitors and retailers. The technology federation Agoria and the Belfius bank decided to award Kortrijk for this forward thinking parking solution.

The Shop & Go parking bays in Kortrijk are monitored closely by parking attendants to prevent abuse of the short stay spaces. Whenever a sensor detects that a vehicle has been parked for over half an hour, the parking attendant receives a message that informs about the parking bay number with the vehicle in overstay. Parko (Parkeerbedrijf Kortrijk) implemented this innovative early 2013. Parko is responsible for the full on- and off-street parking infrastructure in Kortrijk. Meanwhile, also the city of Mechelen installed their first Shop & Go parking spaces in its city centre.

The SENSIT smart parking technology, developed by the Dutch technology company Nedap, consists of wireless floor mounted parking sensors which detect in real-time whether or not a single parking bay is occupied and how long it has been occupied. Real-time parking information can be used to guide traffic effectively, to improve the utilization of parking capacity and to manage parking enforcement more efficiently.

The Nedap system is robust and especially designed for parking in challenging on-street environments. SENSIT contains the most accurate sensor hardware and the most reliable communication network available in the parking industry. Nedap has designed the solution to be easily integrated with third party systems for parking guidance and traffic management systems, way finding apps and enforcement equipment that are used by major cities all over the world.

Nedap will present the wireless parking sensor system SENSIT as well as the Shop & Go parking solution of Kortrijk and Mechelen during this week’s Traffic & Mobility event in Brussels, 5-6 February in the Brussel Expo. Visit Nedap at booth number 11.19.

About Nedap Identification Systems

Nedap Identification Systems is leading specialist in systems for long-range identification, wireless vehicle detection and vehicle entrance management. Nedap readers, sensors and controllers optimize, monitor and control the movement of vehicles and people in every continent in a safe, secure and efficient way. Technology that can easily be applied to and integrated with security, logistic, traffic and parking applications. Nedap enables people to keep moving in a secure and convenient way.

Nedap Identification Systems, part of Nedap N.V., is headquartered in the Netherlands and has offices in the United States, Italy, Dubai and Singapore. Its skilled business partner network is spread across the globe.

www.nedapidentification.com