Modern car parks need good car park design to cater to an increase in demand. However, like many things in life, a winning design does not necessarily jump off the page. Indeed, even well thought-through systems benefit from tweaks and later improvements. Read on to find out more about the sort of innovative work that is going on with modern car parking system designs and the sort of technology you might adopt.
Modern Ticket Issuing Machines
Not all car parks need to issue tickets. Some will run perfectly well by making use of licence plate recognition systems. It will alert an operative whenever an unauthorised car has taken up one of the bays. A car park design that cater to the public is crucial, however, will often issue a ticket either to display on the dashboard.
A car park ticket machine will offer an immediate idea of which model is being used, pay and display or pay on exit. Drivers should never be in any doubt. Whether or not they have taken the time to read the information thoroughly instructions will be clear. All too often, ticket issuing machines in car parks have so much written on them that drivers simply ignore them.
These days, ticket machines in car parks also need to issue their tickets fast. All of the payment information, as well as the date and time, should be printed rapidly and clearly. Any driver who cannot claim their parking costs back because of poorly printed tickets will soon use another facility. This is something that can drive down parking revenue.
Where a ticket is issued on entry, it will have the registration plate printed on it. Avoid ticketing machines which require users to enter their licence number since this is time-consuming and often frustrating. Instead, a system which scans the licence number as the ticket is issued offers all of the user convenience you could wish for.
Updated Car Park designs and Entry Systems
Regulating traffic flow into a car park is essential for its smooth running. Barrier gates constitute essential items for any modern car park entry systems worth their salt. However, these need to be smart devices that do much more than simply arrest drivers for a moment or two as they enter a car park.
These days, modern gate barriers will detect the licence plate of the car that is coming in. So, you can integrate them with your ticket and payment systems, if wanted. They can be set to time the movement of vehicles. The system ensures no two barriers raise up at the same time, thereby making it clear to drivers. Not only does this make it safer for all customers but it means that petty annoyances among drivers disappear.
Of course, today’s high-tech entry systems also ensure that traffic is flowing in the right direction. This is achieved by preventing thoughtless drivers from trying to it out of the car park through the entrance.Programmable options should also mean that an entry point can be reversed. This can be utilised at peak usage times to operate as an exit. The best ones also have additional features, such as traffic lights, making it much easier for drivers.
Drivers have concerns about one-way entry systems is what might happen in an emergency situation. This will always be thought of in advance, providing automatically opening barriers in the event of a power outage should be mainstream.
Car Park Payment Technology
One of the greatest frustrations car park users report about interfacing with any car park relates to payment machines. Although any payment system can go wrong from time to time – reliability is a big issue, of course – broken machines do not cause the greatest number of complaints. Instead, many people simply don’t know how to work them.
Of course, this sort of problem is not so much of an issue in car parks which have a regular clientele. It is much more of an issue in car parks where one-time-only or infrequent usage is the norm, however. Think of a car park at an attraction or an airport where user after user is interfacing with the payment machine for the first time. Each customer has to ‘learn’ what they need to do to make the correct payment.
Good car park design, therefore, necessarily makes paying as easy as possible. In an automated world, this must mean intuitive systems that can be readily understood and engaged with. A key part of this is to provide a payment machine which is not wordy and intricate. Ideally, there will be a sense of flow that users can get from a payment machine. A flow that ‘explains’ the process for paying without even needing to consciously think about it.
Ideally, all of the information a customer needs to pay for their chosen parking period will be on display.
Further information, such as special hours or what to do on a bank holiday should be available but only at the relevant times. Not only can these internet-connected devices provide service messages and business hours at the right time but that can also display information in multiple languages where it is appropriate to do so.
