SOLUTION
LoRaWAN allowed an easy and cost-effective rollout of the smart parking service
Once the city of Mons had set its mind on a wireless solution, the choice was the LoRaWAN technology made perfect sense. Achat-Minute was the first wide-scale LoRaWAN deployment in Belgium – over the Proximus national network, thus proving its technical benefits: - It is wireless and suppresses the need for repeaters and inherent setup costs
- The coverage is optimized making it an obvious alternative to meshed networks.
- Its battery lifespans 5 to 7 years
As a pioneer in its field, CommuniThings initially carried out a two-month pilot (November-December 2015) in two zones involving 50 merchants.The city granted 30 minutes of free parking in a dedicated zone. Sensors on the ground measured time spent and reported infringements to controllers. Users could use the mobile app to find available parking and follow session duration on their mobile phones. Merchants could prolong the parking session by 15 minutes after their purchases, using a QR code reader.
The results were staggering: within 2 months, total rotations per space tripled in each spot, from less than three a day before the pilot to over 9 rotations a day! Retailers appreciated the ability to extend parking duration and enable more purchasing. Following the pilot, and an ensuing public tender, the city of Mons proceeded with a wide-scale launch of the solution across 110 spots (representing less than 20% of its capacity in the city center).
Achat-Minute is a free visual app that can be downloaded on any smartphone via Apple or Android’s app store.Access to the service is kept simple: Once downloaded from the app store, users can view real-time heat map advising on parking availability and enabling navigation to the available space. Once checked-in, the timer on the app advises on time remaining, controllers are informed real-time of elapsed parking duration, allowing for efficient fine-handling of cars in breach. Parking managers receive statistics on usage patterns per parking and comparative analysis between periods (hours, days etc.)