Mumbai: As part of its efforts to improve the parking infrastructure in the city, the BMC plans to modernise physical infrastructure at offstreet and on-street parking lots. The BMC plans put in place an automated system to reduce or minimise human interface at the parking lots.
From putting in place boom barriers to cameras and sensors, the physical infrastructure at the parking lots is likely to undergo a change. The automated systems will also help eliminate allegations of overcharging at parking lots and enable motorists to pre-book parking slots.
The system is likely to be designed in a way to display vacant slots at any particular time and also allow for pre-booking of parking slots. “The BMC is envisaging a system akin to the ones at malls, but some manpower may be needed for guiding motorists or for accepting payments if motorists are unable to make payment online. Various systems for automating the physical infrastructure at parking lots are being examined by BMC and the Mumbai Parking Authority,” said a BMC official.
“The BMC is in the midstof floating an RFP (request for proposal) for the Mumbai Parking Interface software. In the second phase, an RFP will be floated for automating the physical infrastructure at the parking lots. The automated parking systems can becamera-based or sensor-based. The systems will be able to detect whether the parking slots are empty or occupied and allow for booking slots. Some systems enable recording of in-time and out-time of vehicles and charge parking fees according to the duration,” said an official.
“In some systems, boom barriers scan payment codes and allow vehicles to enter and exit automatically, while in some systems, the motorist will have to make payments at a counter or at the entry gate. An ANPR-based system allows reading of registration number of vehicles. “
“In case of on-street parking lots, it is not possible tohave boom barriers. However, the parking slots can be marked. We will examine whether cameras or sensorbased systems can be installed in case of on-street parking,” the official added.
Various payment options are being explored. A recharge wallet can be enabled as part of system and multiple payment options can be part of it. We are looking at aspects like incorporating penalties etc in the system. However, choice of system will be made after bearing in mind that it has to be convenient for motorists and cost-effective for BMC,” the official pointed out. At present, BMC has 91 on-street parking lots.