16 September - PRESS RELEASE - A scancar can assist municipalities in substantially improving the quality and efficiency of parking research. This is the main conclusion of a recent test in the city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The scancar provides information on the number of on-street parked cars, as well as the ratio of cars from visitors versus cars with a parking permit. It can also provide insight into parking occupancy, the parking duration and the payment rates. The scan car (SCANaCAR) was originally developed for the enforcement of on street paid parking, and is currently used in the cities of Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands.

In July 2011, the SCANaCARwas - for the first the time in Europe - successfully used for an on street parking survey by Ecorysand Abstract Computing International (ACI). The trial stems from a long-standing cooperation between the two companies in the field of traffic research.

For the preparation and evaluation of municipal parking policies, monitoring of the enforcement or forecasting of the future parking needs,numerous elements of data are needed. These include the number and origin of the parked cars, the average parking time, and the percentage of non-paying cars, etc. Until today the necessary investigations were often done by observers who, physically on the streets, carry out the necessary research. By using the SCANaCAR, municipalities can make considerable time savings and efficiency improvements in parking research.

SCANaCARis very effective in recording the license plates of parked cars - therefore time-consuming manual recordings by observers will not be needed. The scan car driving through the street being investigated achieves a very high reliability, both in the number of recognized vehicles as well as the recognition itself.

Research on parking duration or the number and origin of parked cars can also be considerably cheaper with the SCANaCAR. It does not only save time, but also delivers more and better information on parking behaviour in a city or neighbourhood. The results are immediately available for analysis and can be displayed at the level of individual vehicles in combination with for example Google Maps. In areas with paid parking, such as Amsterdam and Utrecht, the scan car can also investigate the willingness to pay.

See also SCANaCAR on on You Tube (English subtitled)

More information
Ms Miep Sijben, department of Marketing & Communication,
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