Balancing revenue and speed in your carpark
When you’re looking at installing a PARC solution in your carpark, it’s critical to look for a system that will meet your business’s overall long-term goals and entire carpark design.
Most obviously, you’ll have the choice of ticketed and ticketless PARC systems. Each has their own advantages in balancing speed of entry and exit while capturing revenue.
A ticketed PARC system must be boom gated in order to ensure car park patrons receive a ticket prior to entry– with an obvious effect on potential vehicle throughput. On the other hand, a ticketless LPR (or Licence Plate Recognition) system can be either gated or barrierless, but can have an effect on revenue leakage.
Now, there is a third way to set up a PARC system at your facility.
A hybrid PARC system that features a boom gate on entry can balance speed with revenue capture while reducing operational expense. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each of the three options.
Ticketed PARC systems
A ticketed PARC system such as the Orbility Codex uses 2D barcode tickets as an ideal solution for all types of installations. Its e-Ticket technology manages tickets without motorised insertion and by presenting the ticket to a highly sensitive scanner, for better speed and availability performance than a traditional 1D barcode magnetic stripe solution.
Codex not only offers all the features of a large parking management system, but its barcode technology along with its back end software also offer third-party integrations with systems such as e-commerce platforms.
Since a ticketed system must use a boom gate, vehicle throughput is somewhat slower than with ticketless solutions. On the upside, revenue leakage with ticketed systems is mostly non-existent.
Ticketless PARC systems
Available in either gated or barrierless versions, a ticketless PARC system uses Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) camera technology that has reached read rates of up to 99.15%.
Especially designed for larger parking, ticketless PARC systems can also be adapted to smaller carparks. They offer traditional payment, without contact, by phone or via a booking platform, and can also manage subscribers such as tenants, staff or residents.
Ticketless systems can be adapted to barrierless on entry to increase the flow capacity of vehicles per entry lane, which is extremely beneficial to prevent queuing on entry.
Of course, ticketless systems are not perfect. License plate misreads caused by broken, dirty, or missing licence plates can cause potential revenue leakage. Consequently they can also increase the administration costs of the system, given that intercom calls will become more frequent.
By opting for a gated ticketless system, you can reduce lost revenue because each vehicle car has to come to a stop thanks to the boom gate, allowing the LPR camera to get a clear shot of each licence plate. But of course, this has the effect of slowing entry and exit times into your carpark.
The best of both worlds – hybrid PARC system with ticket and LPR
The fastest system that offers the best customer experience, a hybrid PARC system uses traditional ticketing technology along with an LPR system. Combined with gated entries and exits, this offers greater security on entry and exit, and better accuracy for the licence plate cameras since vehicles have to come to a stop on entry.
Importantly, a hybrid PARC system has the advantage of using two means of recognition for each vehicle: both a licence plate photo and an issued ticket. This way, if the LPR system cannot recognise the licence plate it can then ask the driver to present their ticket.
Thanks to these integrated systems, revenue leakage is essentially zero. And because there are usually fewer intercom calls, a hybrid system has the advantage of less operational expenses. And thanks to its automation, there are less ongoing operational management costs too.
In terms of cons, a hybrid PARC system can be a little slower than a barrierless system in terms of vehicle throughput, since every vehicle does stop at the boom gate.
All PARCafe’s carpark management systems have the capacity to interface with online reservation platforms. These platforms can be provided by clients or built and integrated by PARCsafe. They can also be provided as a white labelled site.
Get more information about car park systems
There’s more to selecting the ideal PARC system than simply choosing between ticketed and ticketless.
PARCsafe’s expert consultants consider the way everything works together to come up with a “turn-key” solution to suit your requirements – from concept through to installation and beyond to service and maintenance.
If you’d like to know more about how a PARC system can improve your car park, call the team today on 1300 987 645 or contact us online.
