Smart parking project completed in Czech Republic following collaboration by SPEL and Paradox Engineering
Kolin smart parking
Czech engineering company, SPEL Inc. and Swiss technology company, Paradox Engineering SA are collaborating to design and implement next-generation solutions for smart mobility and smart cities, pooling respective competences and expertise in industrial and urban services automation.
The first result of this cooperation is a Smart Parking project recently completed in Kolin, Czech Republic.
With about 25 years of history in industrial automation, SPEL is a specialist in traffic telematics with a number of applications for traffic, road tunnels and highways control in the Czech Republic. Paradox Engineering designs and markets technologies to unlock the value of data for Internet of Things ready infrastructures for industrial and urban environments.
Leveraging SPEL’s systems and software, and Paradox Engineering’s PE.AMI platform for wireless smart urban networks, the two partners are hitting the European market with compelling solutions to manage traffic, parking and city mobility, as well as other critical services such as street lighting, public Wi-Fi, video surveillance, emergency services, and many more.
Adhering to the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, PE.AMI allows municipalities and utilities to add intelligence to urban objects (ie. meters, light poles, parking spots, etc.) and connect them into a citywide network. Thanks to SPEL’s solutions, data generated by field devices and collected through PE.AMI nodes and gateways become actionable knowledge, thus enabling a smarter management of key Smart Mobility and Smart City applications.
Gianni Minetti, president and CEO of Paradox Engineering SA, said, “Data availability and correlation is fundamental for any municipality or utility willing to improve services for people and local businesses. Integrating our PE.AMI platform with SPEL’s advanced systems, we’ll be able to provide future proof Smart Mobility and Smart City solutions to grow livability, sustainability and economy of present communities, also supporting urban innovation in a genuine Internet of Things spirit.”
Improving driving and parking experience in Kolin
SPEL and Paradox Engineering recently completed an innovative Smart Parking project in Kolin, Czech Republic. With a population of more than 30 thousand people and a notable historical heritage, the town of Kolin aimed at improving urban mobility by facilitating parking search and making a more efficient use of available parking facilities. SPEL offered the community an integrated Smart Parking solution based on Tinynode’s technology. Tinynode is a Paradox Engineering’s company specializing in wireless vehicle detection systems for parking-related applications.
“Integrating Tinynode’s parking technology, vehicle detection sensors and safe wireless network with an open communication protocol, we enabled a quick and secure architecture to feed the information system of the City”, stated Jiri Svoboda, CEO, SPEL Inc.
Kolin smart parking car sensor
About 60 parking spots in the historical city center have been equipped with Tinynode’s B4-L sensors to detect car occupancy. Designed to be set into the road surface, these products fit Kolin’s peculiar environmental conditions since granting a low impact on street furniture and high resistance to harsh weather conditions and mechanical constraints, ie. street and high pressure cleaning, soft-blade snow ploughing, etc.
Connected into a PE.AMI wireless mesh network, B4-L sensors allow to collect data about parking spaces and elaborate them through an exclusive parking management software, which SPEL implemented for this specific project. SPEL also developed a web portal and a mobile app for iOS and Android devices to offer drivers the opportunity to check parking availability in real time, reserve a spot and – coming soon – pay parking services from the smartphone.
Thanks to this Smart Parking solution, Kolin’s municipality is improving driving and parking experience in town, thus making it more attractive to residents and visitors. Future developments might also be considered, as the platform is open to host other parking-related services, ie. collaborating with local businesses which want to offer spots to their own customers, and even host other urban services over the same network.
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