Smart City Parking: Digitalisation Comes to Split!

By 29 September 2017

On 29th September 2017, Dalmatinski Portal writes about the smart parking app and future projects to improve services to drivers and reduce traffic.

At the beginning of the season we wrote about the launch of the Split parking application, which helps people find parking spaces on the streets. The pilot project for iPhone users was launched and it showed that 20% of vacancies remain at the time of the greatest pressure on parking lots.

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Credit: Garage-Gripe.com

On 29th September 2017, Dalmatinsk Portal writes that Split parking with Ericsson Nikola Tesla has now signed a contract for the implementation of the Smart City Parking project. The contract is worth 2.88 million kunas and funds are intended for the implementation of 1300 parking sensors and an application design that will contribute to reducing traffic jams.

In Marjan, there are 92,000 registered vehicles and 7,000 parking spaces that are charged, and in the municipal, they estimate that at least 5,000 new sites are missing. The number of vehicles [in the city] increases dramatically when tourists and people from nearby cities come. The app will help people find a free parking place by showing where they are located and navigation will even help bring them to the space. The second phase of the application would be to redirect traffic where there are places to avoid necessary crowds in the center’, says Marko Bartulić, director of Split Parking.

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“To solve the parking problem in Split, we will have to change the way of thinking. In the Split parking lot, they do not know how many places are free, but they estimate there are around 25,000.”

“The Mayor has made a decision to establish a working body and we have prepared materials for starting the construction of new garages. I hope that by October or the beginning of November, the matter will be put to the City Council where it will be discussed how to build the garages. [I] believe that the citizens of Split should be protected in the way Dubrovnik protected its people who have very favourable prices for year-round parking, while hourly prices are very high” – said Bartulić.

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Credit: ViaCroatia.com

The app is free, currently it is only available for iPhone users but in one month it will also be available for Android. The cost of the parking lot will be 20 – 30% more favourable than the SMS payment because there is no fee for teleoperators and no SMS is charged.

Mateo Perak, Director of Profico, the company responsible for making the application, said that this is one of the first such projects in this part of Europe and that, besides numerous benefits for users, there are benefits for Split Parking – as it can make decisions and better plan for the future thanks to accurate information from the field.

Mayor of Split, Andro Krstulović Opara is satisfied with the project and said it was the ‘first step towards digitalisation of the city.’

“We need to change thinking as well as changing the way we use the existing parking spaces. We need to introduce an intermodal approach, provide cheaper taxis, which we will talk about soon, we need to revitalise traffic so that citizens can have more favourable driving conditions. As a passionate cyclist, I would also like to see cycling traffic getting a right to coexistence in this city.”

The Mayor announced a tender and that a budget provided HRK 4 million for digitalisation of city administration. “We will also work towards a good track record of document and measurement of responsible behaviour. My documents travel the corridors for 15 days, and how many citizens are waiting for some of their documents? But, these are not things we can change overnight.”

Digitalisation of parking AND of documents, now that would be something! Here’s hoping.

Translated from: Dalmatinski Portal

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