Our world has changed. The word „Mobility“ is on everyone’s lips. At work, we are no longer tied to our desks because we can access our e-mails and the programs we need almost anywhere. We are everywhere and always online thanks to our mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Another ever-present symbol of mobility is all around us, our number 1 means of mobility: the car. We use it to visit our friends, we drive it into town, and even take it on vacation.
Whether the trip takes place in Holland, Spain, the US or in Chile, every trip in a vehicle has this in common: the car must be parked somewhere at the end of the day. In this sense, SKIDATA perceives parking as an integral component of the mobility world. SKIDATA provides parking in its entirety. It is more than just simply parking. Nowadays customers can book their parking space in advance, be guided by their GPS systems to a suitable parking facility, obtain information on the road traffic on the way, and park their cars comfortably at their destination. SKIDATA provides easy access to these services. Here, customer convenience plays a central role. The SKIDATA parking products are appealing thanks to their smooth interplay of hardware, software and web-based services. Barriers, columns, tickets, and automated payment machines are adjusted to provide the highest level of convenience and functionality. The GUI (Graphical User Interface), optimized by specialists, helps make the software as user-friendly as possible. The most modern functions, such as video information in the column or in the automated payment machines, as well as the new column Barrier.Gate ‚Smart‘ integrated LED lights for a better user guidance at the entrance and exit, lift the customer support to a new level. Software that’s perfectly aligned to hardware completes SKIDATA’s parking management. Customers can book their parking space online or by smartphone. Operators stay on top of things from anywhere, intervening as necessary and generating detailed reporting and analyses at the touch of a button. Acting always with a goal of offering access solution to its customers, which drive their business forward, SKIDATA brings parking with innovative, reliable products, functions and services into the Smart Mobilty world.
Barrier.Gate ‘Smart’
The Intelligent Parking System without Column Parking can be so much easier for end customers!
Before, customers had to request a ticket at the parking column and wait for the barrier to open. The latest SKIDATA solution for contracted parking solves this problem with its Customer Convenience. The Barrier.Gate ‘Smart’ combines column and barrier in one single product. This way, the end customers drive to the parking barrier, the parking authorization is read automatically, and the barrier is lifted. By streamlining down to one single product, sustainable advantages are achieved beyond cost reduction: energy consumption is reduced noticeably and operators save space. The use of high-quality materials ensures easy maintenance and reduced operational costs. A clear argument for the Barrier.Gate ‘Smart’ is that it features the most modern functions, all packed together in a timeless design: integrated LED lights improve the user guidance at the entrance and exit. Various symbols simplify instructions for parking on screen. A built-in camera improves overview of the parking process for the operator. The unique lighting of the jointed barrier arm with inboard LEDs ensures safety and recognizability. The Barrier.Gate ‘Smart’ is the result of the technology affinity and the driving force of SKIDATA always striving for new innovations for the market.
A Cleverly Organized Shopping Trip
In many areas of our life, making reservations has already become a habit: When we go to the movies with friends, we reserve our seats. When we plan to eat out, we reserve a table at the restaurant. When we plan to stay overnight in another city, we reserve a room.
So why don‘t we reserve a parking space when we know with certainty that we will need one at a specific point in time? Mr. and Mrs. Smile will show us how easy this is and which advantages the parking space reservation has for end customers and operators.
Booking All-round Service
Mrs. Smile has left her shopping to the last minute, so she plans to do it next weekend. To find all the items she has on her shopping list she will have to visit various shops, which are all located in the heart of the city. Because she is worried that many other people will be doing their shopping on that weekend as well, she had better book a parking space in advance in order to avoid any stress. And what a coincidence: Just this morning, she saw a coupon for cheaper parking for online bookings in the daily newspaper. With the newspaper coupon in front of her, Mrs. Smile immediately goes to the homepage of the parking facility provider. After having chosen the best option for herself from the parking garages on offer, she only has to enter the day and time for the desired reservation. The promotion code helps her save an incredible 50% off the parking fee. „Well this has paid off,“ Mrs. Smile thinks happily! As medium of identification she chooses her mobile phone; this is rather convenient. She pays her parking ticket by credit card online, receives the confirmation via email and the electronic ticket is sent to her phone into her „mobile wallet“. Thanks to the „mobile wallet“, Mrs. Smile has organized and clearly arranged all her tickets and cards in an application on her phone. While completing her online reservation, Mrs. Smile also notes that she can buy many different types of parking tickets on this site. This is a welcome discovery because Mrs. Smile will have to be in the city center for a conference for all of the weekend after next. And since she is already on the homepage, she also books a long-term parking ticket for the conference days right then. It‘s finally the weekend! Mrs. Smile is in her car driving towards the city. When she arrives at the parking garage, she holds her mobile phone with the previously booked ticket to the entrance column. To find her parking ticket, she doesn‘t have to spend time searching through her emails because thanks to her „mobile wallet“ the parking ticket is automatically on display. Mrs. Smile is greeted and happily hums along with the song that she hears at the entrance column via the video. She receives a further ticket and the barrier goes up. Thanks to the clear signage, she quickly finds a free parking space – and Mrs. Smile is in a good mood and ready for her shopping day. Now, she also notices excitedly that her ticket contains a coupon for a coffee that she can use at a café of her choosing. „Perfect customer service,“ thinks Mrs. Smile. After a successful shopping day, Mrs. Smile looks forward to the free coffee at her favorite coffee shop. She redeems her coupon by showing the 2D barcode coupon to the waiter, who scans it. Back at the parking garage, there is no need for her to pass by the automated payment machines thanks to the online payment. Ms. Smile is thus able to quickly leave the parking garage.
Win Customers with Convenience and Marketing
As the operator of a number of car parks, Mr. Smile appreciates the advantages of reservation options and advance booking of parking spaces. They primarily serve the purpose of positive business development and customer loyalty. In just a few steps, customers quickly and easily reserve a parking space on his website. For registered users, the platform offers special advantages: Personal data, billing and payment information have already been stored and need not be entered again for every booking or reservation. His customers get access to a parking garage either via license plate recognition, their mobile phone or credit card. Mr. Smile is also very flexible in terms of pricing: Different types of parking services can be offered on special terms for certain days, such as on weekends. Mr. Smile receives a large quantity of data from his customers when they enter their information, which he can use for marketing purposes. But this is not all. Promotions at the entrance or exit columns or at the automated payment machines, for example, as well as coupon campaigns on parking tickets offer not just high level customer service, but also increase the win-win effect for all parties involved – the shops and restaurants in the vicinity as well as the parking garage.
Spontaneous. Convenient. Easy. Shopping.
Everybody knows the following situation: All of a sudden, something needs to be bought at the last minute – a forgotten birthday present, or you quickly need to get your shopping done. A day in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Smile shows that even spontaneous trips can be convenient for end customers, and parking management can be easy and efficient.
Spontaneously Enjoy Many Advantages
It is late Monday afternoon. Mrs. Smile has been running from one meeting to another all day. As managing director she is facing important and exhausting negotiations today. And as if this wasn‘t stressful enough on a Monday, her mother-in-law has called unexpectedly and on very short notice invited herself for dinner. Mrs. Smile spontaneously drives by a shopping center on her way home to buy a small present. She has a coupon for a free beverage in one of the coffee shops at the shopping center – this coupon was in today‘s paper as part of a promotion. Mrs. Smile‘s mood already improves at the entrance to the shopping center when she sees an advertising message from her favorite shop at the entrance column: „20% off on everything today!“ Mrs. Smile quickly parks her car and first goes to pick up the present for her mother-in-law. At the cash register, she gets her parking ticket validated and takes advantage of her visit at the shopping center to visit her favorite store. How lucky that she saw the ad, otherwise she would have never discovered this great pair of jeans. She also quickly redeems the free beverage coupon that she brought with her and orders a coffee „to go“. On her way back to the car, she has one more occasion to be happy when she pays at the automated payment machine: Thanks to the ticket validation, she does not have to pay for parking. But she notices now that in her rush, she completely forgot where she parked her car. Luckily, the automated payment machine also has a „car finder“ function and shows her where her car is parked. It doesn‘t take long at all and she is back in her car and on her way home. As stressed out as Mrs. Smile was after work today, the smooth shopping trip and the many advantages in the shopping center – the coupon for a free beverage, her favorite shop‘s promotional campaign, the free parking ticket and the quick recovery of her car thanks to the car finder function – have improved her mood again. Now the only thing left for her to do is to survive her mother-in-law‘s visit.
Car Park Management using CARisma
As part of his car park network, Mrs. Smile‘s husband, Mr. Smile, also operates a shopping center parking garage. Here he utilizes parking devices in a targeted manner and leases the available advertising spaces on the columns and automated payment machines to the shops in the shopping center. This way, he is able to refinance his parking system, but these advertising options are also profitable for the stores as he can frequently observe and learn from his wife‘s purchases. Mr. Smile offers special customer support through bi-directional video transmissions. If required, his customers receive optimal service via audio and video. His customers also increasingly make use of the car finder. Thanks to the many offered parking services, Mr. Smile ensures that an increasing number of customers uses the parking service and comes to the shopping center. The validation system, for example, ensures that shopping center customers park for free, while all others have to pay for the services used. The parking guidance system also helps to quickly find a parking space in the parking garage. Special monitoring and control services make the car park management simple and efficient for Mr. Smile. He has a full overview of all transactions at any time and from anywhere as well as of the condition of the devices in his parking garage. He can also intervene, if required. This way, he can ensure that all parking systems always function properly and provide his customers with optimal service. Mr. Smile also receives statistics and analyses regarding the development of capacity utilization and revenue with just one mouse click. He can, for example, immediately see the capacity utilization development or the revenue achieved on peak days. This information supports Mr. Smile‘s strategic planning in order to optimize his own and the shopping center‘s business.
Efficient Employee Administration
One parking facility, several companies. An administrative effort that used to be complicated and complex has now become simple and efficient. Companies have their own parking space contingent in the office and business park in which they are located. The operators only assign parking space contingents to the resident companies. And these in turn manage their employees themselves. This sounds complicated, but is actually really simple, as the example of Mrs. and Mr. Smile shows.
Self-administration Made Easy
Mrs. Smile owns a company located in a business park. In order to ensure that her employees are able to conveniently park close to their workplace, she booked a parking space contingent from the operator. Mrs. Smile easily manages this contingent on her own using the online administration platform. On this platform, she can quickly create or delete employees, change authorizations and update data at any time. Recently one of her employees went on maternity leave for a year. Mrs. Smile simply blocked this employee‘s parking authorization for the period in question. After expiration of this period, the authorization will be automatically reinstated. During her employee‘s maternity leave, Mrs. Smile hired a replacement, whose data she entered into the program with just a few mouse clicks. Thanks to the existing keytags and keycards, this new employee received his access medium right on the first day. This is highly convenient as the keycards offer touch-free, and the keytags even hands-free access without the annoying lowering of the window. Mrs. Smile also personally takes care of the deletion of an employee who is leaving the company, or updates their data in case of name changes. The online tool is so simple and intuitive that these tasks take only a few mouse clicks. For some employees who only work part time in the mornings, Mrs. Smile is even able to restrict the parking authorization to these time periods.
Revenue Without Much Effort
Her husband, Mr. Smile, who operates a group of various car facilities, including one in a business park, knows the advantages of the self-service system both for his customers as well as for himself, the operator. Basically, this rental system of parking space contingents ensures revenue without requiring much effort on his part. Without having to spend much time on it, Mr. Smile simply allocates the parking facility contingents, enters the companies into the system and sends them the desired access media. There is no longer any need for data registration, resulting administrative expenditures with respect to vehicle changes, name changes or modified access authorizations for individual parking customers, as all these tasks are performed by the companies themselves. Despite all this, Mr. Smile is able to monitor his customers and their customers whenever he needs to. Billing and invoicing also happen automatically.
Stress-free Travel Starts with Parking
A seamless travel experience is the goal. Reserve a parking space ahead of time, arrive with your car at the airport, park conveniently and go directly to your flight. And best of all, you can book all the services you need in one package. Not possible? Yes, it is!
Pure Convenience and Saved Time
As a successful businesswoman, Mrs. Smile frequently has to travel by air to meet customers and go to events or trade fairs. Next month, for instance. Just recently, the effort to get all required bookings done was very time-consuming: She had to book every service individually – the plane ticket, the parking space at the airport, and a hotel at her destination. But thanks to a tip from a friendly colleague, Mrs. Smile is now able to book everything in one go. She can book all three services via the new travel agency, and just a short while later she is sent the parking ticket, the flight ticket as well as the hotel reservation confirmation by mail. So convenient – and the package is also less expensive than if she had booked every service individually!
A Win-Win Situation
As a car park operator, her husband Mr. Smile knows these advantages. Such cooperations are truly a win-win for all parties involved – the operator as well as the agencies, for example travel agencies, and the end customers. The agencies thus have the option to include the parking space offers in their package and are able to provide a more comprehensive travel package. And end customers, such as Mr. Smile‘s wife, benefit from more cost-effective packages and higher convenience. For operators such as Mr. Smile, the set up of new agencies in the online platform, like travel agencies, takes just a few steps. In addition, he decides who is permitted to offer which products at what price on his sales channels. Through the sale of parking spaces by agencies, the operator profits thanks to the highest possible capacity utilization and is thus able to optimize his sales revenue. And all this without him having to bother with the reservation process. Because, thanks to the selforganizing of the ticket sales through agencies, the operator is able to focus on other areas.
Parking in Residential Facilities
Half the world‘s population already lives in cities – and the number is growing. For the foreseeable future, the car will remain our No. 1 means of transport. And naturally, we would prefer to park our car close to our apartment without a lengthy search for a parking space. Like Mrs. Smile, many tenants and apartment owners would like to enjoy convenient parking in their daily lives.
Living and Parking Comfort in a Double Pack
As a successful businesswoman, Mrs. Smile frequently has to work long hours and does not always feel like driving from the city to her family home on the outskirts of the city at night. She has therefore rented a small apartment in the middle of the city. This apartment is part of a residential facility that has an integrated parking garage in the building. This parking garage is exclusively used by the residents of this residential facility. During the apartment handover, Mrs. Smile receives her apartment keys together with an RFID card (keycard). The keycard serves as a pedestrian and vehicle access medium to the parking garage. The supervisor of the residential facility asks her to enter her personal information and the number of the keycard she received on the property developer‘s website. She can decide herself which service packages she would like to choose, whether she just wants parking or parking combined with additional services such as washroom usage or the e-bike rental service. To be able to use the parking facility as quickly as possible, Mrs. Smile immediately registers on the website. It just takes her a few steps to enter her personal information: Name, address, apartment number and number of the received keycard etc. She selects the 24/7 parking service in combination with the e-bike rental service. By clicking on „confirmation“, she activates all selected services and is able to use them all immediately. Because the parking garage is used exclusively by the building‘s tenants, Mrs. Smile can only enter the parking garage with her keycard. She uses the same keycard daily as her own personal parking ticket. During entry and exit, the reader recognizes her authorization and the roller door opens automatically. Mrs. Smile can also use the additional e-bike rental service via her keycard: Just last weekend, she used it to get access to the locked storage room and rented one of the bikes for a day. Payment at month‘s end is as easy and convenient as the use of the three services (access to the parking garage, parking and e-bike rental), for which Mrs. Smile receives an invoice. Mrs. Smile loses her keycard one day. No problem, thanks to the central online administration. After the administrator of the residential facility has been notified of the lost data carrier, Mrs. Smile simply visits his office and receives a new keycard. On the web portal, she quickly and easily enters the new number and is once again able to use all the services as before.
Convenient (Rental) Income From Parking Spaces
Mr. Smile operates a few parking facilities in various residential properties as part of his car park network. Their administration is very easy and takes little effort. They are integrated in residential facilities, and only the tenants have walking and driving access to them. Therefor Mr. Smile has a box full of unassigned keycards, which he hands out to the tenants. If a tenant loses her or his keycard, he simply blocks the number of the lost keycard and provides the tenant with a new data carrier. If a tenant cancels the parking service or apartment lease, Mr. Smile deletes the authorizations on the keycard and can reuse it, if needed. Should a tenant fail to pay the bill at month‘s end, he can simply block the keycard together with the services linked to it. As with all of his parking facilities, Mr. Smile also enjoys full access to all parking transactions of the keycard holders, he receives statistics listing capacity utilization, etc. at the push of a button and is always able to intervene as necessary – at any time and from anywhere.
About SKIDATA
SKIDATA Group is an international leader in the field of access solutions and their management. Almost 10,000 SKIDATA installations worldwide in ski resorts, shopping centers, major airports, municipalities, sports stadiums, trade shows, and amusement parks provide secure and reliable access and entry control for people and vehicles. SKIDATA places great value in providing solutions that are intuitive, easy to use, and secure. The integrated concepts of SKIDATA solutions help clients optimize performance and maximize profits. SKIDATA Group (www.skidata.com) belongs to the publicly traded Swiss Kudelski Group (www.nagra.com), a leading provider of digital security solutions.
