Established Independent Car Park Operator

 

Our customer is an independent, specialist provider of parking management services, managing sites across the UK with over 30 years of parking industry expertise. They provide bespoke parking solutions to major companies, local authorities, and private landowners.  

It was important to our customer to support their day-to-day parking management activities with a technology solution that provided a fair, transparent, and ethical approach to parking management.  

 

Partnering with APT for Parking Management Compliance  

 

APT is architected on Azure to provide ongoing security, scale and resilience; , it has been built using the latest technology frameworks. Furthermore, it provides a flexible and comprehensive API to allow smooth integrations with any 3rd party hardware and software systems.  

Our customer decided to move all their operations to APT as it provided them with a solution that delivers on: 

• automation built on business logic that meets compliance as set by governing bodies such as IPC, BPA  

• removing unnecessary manual interventions and reduces the risk of human error by using technology to improve the accuracy of data  

• prioritising the process of managing the lifecycle of a PCN  

• providing a complete solution by bringing together ANPR, MNPR, Pay & Display, Mobile Payments, Warden Apps, Customer Portals, Kiosk Apps, Appeals and more to support the unique requirements of every car parking site 

Finding the right parking management solution wasn’t the only requirement; our customer needed a technology partner that was responsive to support requests, delivered a high standard of customer service with a robust approach to introducing changes, upgrades and updates to the software without impacting their operations. This is the complete offering provided by APT – technology, robust change management, ongoing communication and optimisation.  

 

Common Challenges  

 

Our customer is not new to the challenges faced with managing sites and processing PCNs. In their experience with using other available systems, the common challenges that don’t often get resolved or rely on manual checking therefore open to human error include:  

 

1: Data inconsistencies between camera data and data seen in parking software with wrong pairs of VRMs i.e. the VRM in is differently read to the VRM out, however to the human eye you know it’s the same VRM. These can often be corrected manually but can miss the automated process timing therefore results in voided tickets and loss of site revenue.   

 

2: Checking Camera Status for ANPR sites it’s important to know the camera is live/active at all times, this level of reliable visibility isn’t often available in other solutions. It can rely on a parking processor to check this routinely every morning across multiple customers and sites.  

 

3: Integration issues impacting real time data such as the scenario when Pay & Display or Mobile Payment integrations stop working or fail to send over timely data, it can lead to a manual overhead of cross-referencing system and integration data – open to human error.  

 

We know all software solutions can result in error, integrations can break, data can get delayed and so on. It’s important to have processes in place that can still benefit from the level of automation that is required when everything runs smoothly.  

 

Car Park Management with APT 

 

APT was able to provide its customer with reassurance that APT either had capability within it or that we had processes in place: 

 

1: APT feature to check for similarity in VRMs with the ability to adjust the confidence %  

2: Camera Status is available from within APT’s dashboard providing proactive alerts  

3: Process to capture any missed or delayed data to be placed back into the automated workflow  

 

Results 

 

• Successful online and IVR payments which has reduced the number of payment queries. APT provides a simple and easy process for people to pay their PCNs using the automated options.  

 

• Increased customer confidence in the data seen in APT as it is effectively supporting their end-to-end process. 

 

• Customer in control with predictable technology spending budget as APT provides a transparent and clear cost structure with no hidden costs. With the added benefit that APT does not take any PCN revenue. 

 

• Improved operational efficiencies with reduced manual interventions and the ability to rely on robust automated processes within APT.