Monitoring of KISS & RIDE parking spaces
We often need to deal with various matters at the public offices, and since most of them are located in city centers, we encounter a problem when driving our vehicles - where to park. We circle around the location looking for the most suitable space that is free and still close enough to it.
Therefore, cities are starting to set up fast-turnover or kiss & ride parking spaces for their residents to prevent this problem and allow citizens to go about their business in peace and without waiting. Parking in such designated places is limited in time - but let's face it, not every driver respects this limitation. The city of Brno decided to tackle the issue and to understand the driver behavior. VisionCraft was tasked to deliver data on how citizens use the kiss & ride parking areas, at what time of the day the peak can be expected and whether drivers observe the set limit. Together, we prepared a pilot project that helped answer these questions.
Our solution
To monitor eleven parking spaces, our solution required only one of our autonomous AI sensors viSEN (VisionCraft Sensor) to be placed on a public lighting mast. We managed the installation with our deployment partners from Technical Networks Brno literally in a few minutes, then we calibrated the sensor so that it was ready to monitor the given area.
In a matter of hours, the system was fully operational and within a few days, thanks to our patented technology, it "learned" to recognize the situation on the road, detect the places where vehicles are parked and assign the required free/occupied status to them.
We prepared a simple web interface with a detailed overview of parking spaces for this parking area monitoring scenario. The system then monitored the duration of each individual parking space occupancy, and a statistical report on this set of data about the use of parking spaces and the behavior of drivers was made for the city of Brno.
Our solution detects and responds to a variety of situations, such as evaluating a change in driver behavior during pilot testing, when all parking spaces became vacant and remained unoccupied. The system recognized this unexpected situation and stopped monitoring. As it turned out, road reconstruction had started in the monitored area, the city did not have to notify us about the situation as our algorithms detected, validated and informed us of such change in the monitored scene. No human interaction, which would mean additional costs, was necessary.
Conclusion
People in the city of Brno have a way to go to either understand or abide by the kiss & ride rules. A full 39% of drivers exceed the permitted parking time, of which 24% by more than 60 minutes. It was not uncommon for some drivers to park there for days. Based on the analyzed data, the city of Brno plans to prepare detailed monitoring of other kiss & ride parking spaces. An important part of this activity is informing and educating the public about the monitoring. It can happen in various ways - display the current occupancy of monitored areas online or with the help of electronic street signs and at the same time provide local police force with real-time information on individual "sinners".
Statement of the contracting authority
Kiss & ride parking spaces are becoming more and more indispensable for large cities as they try to provide flexible short-term parking for their citizens. Monitoring and evaluating their occupancy gives the city the opportunity and flexibility to respond to the current situation, as well as to identify "sinners" who use these places for purposes for which they are not intended. The quick response time while commissioning the solution, the ability to access data in real time and clear reporting are the biggest advantages of the VisionCraft solution.
Ing. Radka Matuszková, resident parking project manager, Department of Transportation, Brno
