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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Intelligent Electronics maximizes the effective utilization of Parking Garages and Parking Areas A South African innovation is saving millions of
Rands for the owners of parking garages by allowing the normal utilization to be
increase from the typical 70% occupancy of parking bays to virtually 100%. The South African developed VIDEX system is a
flexible management system, which originated from the requirement to integrate
digital video surveillance with sophisticated access control.
The latest VIDEX system is the result of continuous development of
solutions required by clients during SOFTWARE AND ELECTRONICS LABORATORIES’s
20 years of handling turnkey projects. The system is fully modular and can be
implemented in phases if required. The
simplest version already establishes the VIDEX warehouse platform as the heart
of future expansion. This data
warehouse runs on a UNIX/LINUX computer operating system for speed and stability
and connects to simple VIDEX sensors at the entrances and exits of parking areas
to establish the number of vehicles in different parking garages or sub-areas.
VIDEX then generates messages and switches indicators to lead vehicles to
the areas where there are still parking bays available. At the next level of sophistication VIDEX is
utilized to start active vehicle control by controlling booms at the entrances
and exits of parking areas. VIDEX control can include the full payment system
control with or without automatic numberplate recognition and correlation of the
vehicle with a card or token associated with the vehicle – typically a card
issued at entry and used for payment purposes.
A further sophistication is to use face imaging and then to expand to
full automatic face recognition. Adding
video cameras for digital surveillance can be done at any time and is extremely
affordable when using VIDEX. To allow very high levels of utilization of
parking areas the occupancy of each parking bay can be monitored by VIDEX, which
then directs vehicles to the available vacant parking bays.
When this level of sophistication is reached, it makes sense to allow
VIDEX to pre-allocate a specific parking bay to each vehicle as the vehicle
enters the parking area. VIDEX
prints the direction and location on the issued card and VIDEX controlled signs
and indicators direct the vehicle to the right bay.
Should the vehicle be moved before the specific card has been presented
for payment, an alarm will be triggered and the necessary actions can be
initiated by VIDEX to prevent theft, or to instruct the driver to first pay.
This instruction can typically be an audible voice message, generated by
VIDEX and sent to the nearest loudspeaker to the specific parking bay. The system actually saves money not only in
manpower requirments but more importantly in actual capital cost.
Each parking bay in a parking garage typically represents
approximately 30 to 50 sq. meters of floor space including approaches, which
represents a cost of R30 000 to R100 000. The
rental for a VIDEX system is much lower than the interest on this amount even
should the interest rate drop far below the present rates. This, coupled to the increased revenue derived
by maximizing utilization of available parking space, represents a considerable
financial gain. The reduction of
customer frustration is a further reason why the installation of a VIDEX system
at parking garages is essential. An example of a typical installation of a VIDEX
system at a well-known shopping centre North of Johannesburg will illustrate the
flexibility and utility of VIDEX. Jerry
Khumalo, a technician with more than 10 years service at SOFTWARE AND
ELECTRONICS LABORATORIES, gives details about the installation for which he was
responsible. The digital video
system not only records images of vehicles entering and leaving the parking
areas, but VIDEX also monitors all the pedestrian entrances and exits digitally.
Additional video cameras were installed at these points to ensure that
faces can be recognized on the screens. This
also allows the VIDEX automatic face recognition option to be added at any time. Jerry is proud of the quality and speed with
which the installation was executed. He
tells us that all the back corridors are covered by video cameras, which only
record when movements are detected in the area. He has incorporated PIR movement detectors in some corridors,
door sensors on sensitive doors and Video Motion Detectors in areas where
PIR’s can not adequately discriminate for movement.
Images from each camera are recorded at a different speeds depending on
criteria which are continually evaluated by VIDEX.
Jerry assures us that despite the sophistication of the system the
setting up and operation of the system is very simple and that half a day’s
training was adequate for training the operators with only elementary knowledge
of Windows usage. Jerry explains the parking area system as a
straightforward ‘Pay-on-Foot’ system, which he regards as a very elementary
application of VIDEX and not nearly as interesting as the other capabilities of
the system. At the moment the
parking facilities are still not fully utilized even at peak hours, and
therefore only the use of VIDEX controlled electronic signs for traffic control
are justified. He finds the
extension possibilities of the system more exciting and explains how the
shopping centre is currently expanding the system to do power consumption
monitoring and control. He also
explains that each shop in the complex is being coupled to the system to give
each shop individualized alarm, access control and monitoring of their shop with
centralized reaction and monitoring of selected cameras while other cameras can
only be monitored by the shop owner. When Jerry is pushed to discuss the VIDEX
parking control system further, he explains that as each driver stops at the
boom he pushes a button to obtain a parking card on which advertisements can be
printed. As he pushes the button
the VIDEX system captures an image of the driver’s face and takes an image of
the vehicle’s numberplate. The
card is coded and the VIDEX system couples the card code with the automatically
recognized numberplate. The driver
must carry the coded card with him for payment at pay stations within the
shopping centre where VIDEX calculates the cost depending on the duration
elapsed since entry. At the exit
point the card is presented to a card reader by the driver at which time Videx
again records an image of the driver’s face as well as an image of the vehicle
numberplate. If the automatically
recognized number on the numberplate does not match the card code and the entry
numberplate, VIDEX will start a sequence of actions typically including
triggering an alarm in the control room and the boom or gate will remain closed. To date VIDEX has not allowed a single vehicle to be stolen
from a car park. When asked about the reliability of such a
sophisticated, all encompassing system, Jerry assures us that the system has
very low maintenance requirements and that the occasional problem experienced is
normally due to misuse by operators. Due
to the fact that the system can be monitored and set-up configurations can be
down loaded over normal telephone lines, these problems are normally fixed
within minutes by one of SOFTWARE AND ELECTRONICS LABORATORIES’s engineers who
can phone in using his portable computer. This
also occurs over weekends where the engineers can fix the problem from anywhere
within cellphone range. An added
benefit is that because the system is wholly South African conceived, designed,
programmed and manufactured, any new requirements are easily and cheaply
incorporated into the system. Jerry
mentions the biometric recognition systems (face recognition, fingerprint
recognition and voice recognition) which were integrated in 1999 as a case in
point.
For More Information Contact: |
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Send mail to
hendrik@videx-systems.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
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