Every new technology that enters our lives opens the door to a range of different technologies that complement and develop it. New technologies by their nature need different ideas and usage areas in order to be optimized and to facilitate their use. Smart parking technologies are a set of technologies that complement smart transportation systems and smart cities, thereby minimizing the problem of searching for parking spaces that we frequently encounter today. It is not possible for a city, whose parking systems are not smart, to produce permanent solutions to the problems it may encounter in transportation. Considering all these, it is easier to understand how the digitization of parking lots plays a big role in people's lives and in the regulation of transportation.
Digitalization is the general name given to the improvement of the functioning of a system by perceiving all kinds of information we see or cannot see around us in our daily life and transforming it into processable data in a virtual environment. In this way, a digitalized system makes less mistakes, is faster and more economical in the long run than a system where only people work. The IoT technology, which is one of the most important technologies of today, is one of the main building blocks of digitalization. With IoT, the desired data can be quickly obtained and sent to servers that store and process the data. In order for this system to work effectively, there should be smart devices and / or sensors that can collect the desired data in the area to be digitized. When sensors and cameras designed to measure proximity, pressure, temperature, sound and similar values are integrated with IoT technology, every variable existing in a region can be controlled and regulated. The human interaction required for these and similar systems is decreasing day by day and thus the quality of the services that can be offered increases.
Today's car parks often need human observation to control themselves. A parking lot should have cameras working continuously and people who follow the images taken from those cameras without blinking to ensure the maximum level of security and order. Digitalization is a must to meet these needs by minimizing human interaction and the margin of error that comes with this interaction. So how can a car park undergo a digital transformation? In car parks, multiple solutions can be produced to obtain data that facilitates the management of the car park. With the help of sensors and cameras, data such as whether a parking lot is occupied, the general occupancy rate in the parking lot, the general information of the vehicles entering the parking lot and the duration of their stay in the parking lot can be obtained. Although the data obtained by cameras and sensors are mostly the same, the main differences between them occur in the processes of data acquisition and system setup. In order for the sensors to accurately collect data from a parking lot, sensors must be installed in each parking area in the parking lot. These sensors send the data they have collected to the main server in a wired or wireless way and the most accurate results are obtained if the system works completely. Should any of the sensors fail, the resulting data analysis will lose its accuracy. However, placing a sensor in each parking lot in a high-capacity car park maximizes the installation cost.
Digital Transformation Methods in Parking Lots
OCameras are the most affordable and cost-effective provider of digital transformation in car parks. However, if we are talking about a complete digitalization, it is not enough to monitor the parking area only through cameras. People watching the cameras can make mistakes in collecting and analyzing data. The best solution to this problem is image recognition technology. If the images transmitted from the cameras are processed with this technology, the desired data can be accessed in real time. With a suitable camera angle and superior image recognition technology, data is provided from every area that the camera can view. In this way, maximum efficiency is obtained at the lowest possible cost. This data includes both the parking space occupancy and the duration of stay in the parking lot, which sensors can also detect, and visual information such as the license plate and vehicle type that the sensors cannot detect. Thus, all the needs of a car park are met without compromising data flow. So if a camera system enhanced with image recognition is superior to sensors in every respect, why are they still talking about sensors? The reason for such a situation is that image recognition technology is not yet widespread enough. With the increase in the projects in which the knowledge and resources required for the spread of this new technology, the importance of which has started to be understood rapidly globally, the conditions required for dissemination become ready. Nowadays, such projects are not common. Supporting image recognition projects plays an important role both in the development of this technology and in the daily implementation of new technologies. With the widespread use of this technology, it is inevitable that the use of sensors in smart car parks, which are an important part of smart cities and smart transportation, will disappear. A smart car park that uses a camera instead of a sensor keeps the cost as low as possible and also makes a more sustainable and environmentally friendly choice.
The number of people living in cities around the world is increasing day by day. In order to relieve the heavy traffic that emerged with this increase, all relevant institutions from countries to companies and local governments are looking for solutions. Based on the growing interest in Turkey and around the world are developing new solutions to this design problem many companies are approaching from different directions, but can not provide a large portion of their desired yield. We can examine the problems encountered in this regard under several main headings. Companies that want to use sensors compulsorily give their services at a high price, and this situation causes many projects to be shelved due to lack of budget. In addition to this situation, companies that cannot provide sufficient progress in image recognition technologies cannot fully meet the requested services. In the projects that can be implemented, the disconnections in the transfer of these services to the vehicle owners cause these projects not to reach their full potential and become widespread. For this reason, projects that use image recognition technology in our country and abroad, can establish a bridge between car park management and vehicle owners, and have an infrastructure that can expand all these services can only achieve small success. Under these conditions, the widespread use of smart parking lots, which serve as the backbone of smart cities, is happening much more slowly than it should be due to the inadequate development of the relevant companies. Considering these factors, the widespread use of smart parking systems seems to be delayed until the distant future. However, the entrance of these smart cities and smart parking lots, which seem utopian to us for now, is actually much closer than it seems. It's almost here! Parkpilot is here with the image recognition technology it will provide to the parking lots, the parking lot application that can be used in the observation and arrangement of the parking lots and the user application that will take the trouble of searching the parking lot out of your life! With its young, dynamic and expert staff, the parkpilot, which operates in areas such as smart transportation and digitalization of parking lots, aims to minimize the vehicle traffic caused by the problem of searching for parking spaces.
parkpilot's Place in Digitalization
parkpilot is a smart parking initiative that emerged to meet the requests of both parties with the most appropriate approach possible, taking into account both car park management and vehicle owners. Parkpilot, which presents the data it obtains with image recognition technology and appropriate camera angles in real time to parking lot employees and people looking for parking spaces via phone application, aims to minimize the time lost by searching a parking space and to improve the user experience for both parties. The moment the user chooses the place he wants to go with his vehicle from the application, he can see the parking spaces of the closest parkpilot smart parking system member to that area and get detailed information about these parking spaces. In this way, by taking the problem of searching for a parking place off the user's shoulders, parkpilot makes driving more enjoyable, at the same time, it measures the time the vehicle is parked and charges with the tariff set by the parking lot. The mobile payment system integrated into the application offers users and parking management the easiest possible alternative for payment transactions. Thanks to the cameras in the parking lot and the parkpilot's superior image recognition technology, parking lot attendants can monitor the intensity of the entrances and exits to the parking lot without access to the personal information of the vehicle owners, and use this data to increase the service quality. In addition, parking lot customers can stay anonymous and communicate with the parking lot management. All this information transfer is transferred to both the parking lot side and vehicle owners via the application.
Our quality of life is increasing day by day with the application of constantly developing technologies in our country and in the world. Especially the satisfaction level of people living in big cities becomes measurable with technology. Image recognition technologies, in particular, have a great potential in the digitalization of cities. The transportation problem, which has become one of the biggest problems of the 21st century people, especially the traffic that occurs during the parking lot search, can be solved with a widespread smart parking system. This and many other high-level technologies that can make human life easier are waiting for the day when they can cease to be theories and be integrated into daily life. In order to shorten this waiting, it is of great importance to create usage areas where innovative ideas and new technologies can become active. In order to fulfill these tasks, initiatives seeking solutions to today's problems with future technologies need to be supported.