How Smart Parking Limited and the City of Adelaide Have Created Positive Parking Change for Customers Through Technology

The aim of the City Parking Experience Project was to create positive change and improve the customer parking experience within the City of Adelaide through the implementation of Smart Parking’s technology.

With approximately 200,000 vehicles accessing the City of Adelaide every day, the experience of city users, as well as economic growth and business vitality were important considerations the decision to engage a parking technology company. It was recognised that efficient management of parking makes it easier to do business, thus supporting the economic prosperity of the City.

Smart Parking produced the following video as a tool for the City of Adelaide to promote the new system and highlight how the app features and benefits work.

The major innovation component for this project was the SmartCloud platform and the Park Adelaide app. While Smart Parking have other customers using the platform and various iterations of the app, the unique requirements of City of Adelaide meant the app capabilities were developed even further than they had ever been previously.

The app, called ‘Park Adelaide’, offers a raft of features such as parking information, costs, directions, mobile payment and remote top up of parking time. In an Australian first, the app also has an ‘Extend Stay’ feature which allows customers to remotely extend their stay beyond the maximum time limit - because ‘life happens’ and sometimes customers find it difficult to get back to their vehicle on time.

Smart Parking Limited’s advanced technology has enabled the City of Adelaide (CoA) to provide reliable and timely information to support customer decision making. This has been achieved by focusing on providing motorists with clear choices and flexible payment options to improve the customer service for city visitors.

Every effort was made by the City of Adelaide to ensure public engagement with the new system was a positive experience, and the initiative was designed to improve city services, rather than a revenue gathering exercise.

A direct benefit for the City of Adelaide is the valuable data they can capture to help inform future decision making. This data provides heightened visibility of their parking facilities, and can generate detailed, customised reports around peak times and parking trends. Meaningful analysis can then be used to determine bay utilisation and driver behaviour, and future planning will be able to rely on statistics rather than guess work.

The project has improved the quality of urban space by ensuring that motorists have correct parking information at their fingertips, negating the need to circle the streets in their vehicle to locate an available bay thereby reducing both traffic congestion and vehicle carbon emissions. This also results in under-utilised parking spaces being used on a more regular basis. Optimising the use of on street parking bays also supports a more holistic view of parking across the city.

The City of Adelaide now have the infrastructure to expand the SmartPark system to other parking areas across the City. The SmartCloud platform and Park Adelaide app are infinitely scalable and future-proof, and by installing additional sensors and SmartSpots in other areas the system framework can be expanded on very easily and cost effectively.

Public feedback has been positive, with thousands of people using the app, and already there is better traffic flow and parking conditions in the Smart Parking precinct.

“We are thrilled with the number of customer downloads since the launch of our Park Adelaide App earlier this year. Smart Parking Limited were flexible and innovative in their approach to developing our on street parking technology system. The ‘Extend Stay’ feature providing the option for customers to overstay the maximum time limit by 15 minutes is an Australian first! Their dedication to delivering a quality product ensures our customers are provided accurate and reliable information to make informed choices. I look forward to the opportunity to continue working with SPL to further develop the technology to provide an even greater customer experience when visiting the City of Adelaide.” - Lisa Loveday, City of Adelaide Manager City Services.

About Smart Parking Limited 

Smart Parking Limited is a pioneering technology innovator and services company in the parking industry. With offices in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, along with a rapidly growing global network of expert partners, our aim is to bring our intelligent parking sensors and integrated smart parking services to the world. Each year, we install tens of thousands of sensors in a range of environments including shopping centres, supermarkets, airports, commercial parking sites, universities and large scale municipal street environments. To date, our advanced real-time vehicle parking sensor solution, known as SmartPark, has been adopted in 17 countries. Alongside the technology products division, our managed services division operates and manages thousands of car park spaces across the UK using complementary Automatic Number Plate Recognition/License Plate Recognition (ANPR/LPR) technology. This can be used as a single solution or with the option to be combined with Pay & Display or integrated with sensing technology. Smart Parking Limited has been an Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:SPZ) publicly listed company since early 2011.