Scheidt & Bachmann: Small can sometimes be just right

The 5 star designer “Marker Hotel" (Grand Canal Square, Docklands, Dublin 2, Ireland) is situated in one of the best Dublin city locations, not far from the conference venue for this year's EPA Congress. Famous for its first class service and luxury, it offers another highlight in the form of its underground car park which in itself is a world premiere in every sense of the word.

The car park operator, Q-Park, decided on the Small Site System from Scheidt & Bachmann. This exciting new system was designed and developed around the operator’s requirements.

The key selling point is that even parking areas that seem uneconomical to manage at first glance due to their small size can be equipped with this fully automated barrier system. The investment costs for such a high quality system is very competitive and ensures the return on investment is quickly achieved.

So what makes this system so unique?

The system does not need normal parking tickets. Vehicles enter and exit exclusively using credit/debit cards or QR codes as well as RFID cards for regular customers. This means that paper tickets or ChipCoins do not have to be purchased or refilled during daily operations. A conventional Pay Station is no longer necessary and, therefore, is not installed.

The same applies to the parking server. The system runs as a hosted "Software as a Service" solution in the cloud. Even though the system is unmanned and completely self-sufficient, customer service is still a priority. If a customer requires assistance they can use the intercom at the entrance or exit, where they are directly connected to the Q-Park control room at their headquarters in Maastricht, in the Netherlands. This service is offered around the clock - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Traffic Control Systems Ireland, Scheidt & Bachmann's partner in Ireland for many years, has installed the system and is now providing maintenance and the local after-sales service.