How Do Parking Control Systems Work?

As people buy cars daily, the demand for more parking spaces increases. Parking industries have become common over the last five years, including the latest technologies. One of the most common techniques that businesses use is parking control systems.

The Parking Industry

You might have plans to create a parking business soon, but you need to figure out where to start. While business owners have different ways to approach a problem, they share common knowledge. One of the essential parts of a parking business is parking management.

To understand how the parking system works, you need to know the basics of the parking industry. There are two main factors to consider in parking management: revenue generation and access control. As a parking industry, you must focus on providing parking spaces for people while generating revenue.

You must optimize your access control through parking control systems to maximize your revenue. These systems reduce the number of staff and small, redundant mistakes that people make, such as mistyping plate numbers or delays in issuing receipts.

These systems help you organize your parking spaces for your convenience, as well as for the users. You’ll have little or no problem managing your parking business with proper monitoring and regular maintenance. 

Some of the most common parts of the parking control system include:

• Access Control Pedestal
• Card Readers and Credential
• Ticket Box
• Gate Barrier
• Parking Space Protector
• Access Control Software, Displays, and Sensors

You don’t have to own every technology that entails parking control systems. You just have to include what is necessary for your business and make improvements in areas that need improvements. Knowing these types of hardware, you need to understand how each plays a part in your parking system.

How Does the Parking Control System Work?

Only three necessary steps govern the system, and the hardware involved in each step is for monitoring and security purposes. These steps are vital to identifying the three critical aspects of the parking system.

1. The Entrance

A customer drives to your parking lot and halts at the designated space. You have your gate barriers at the entrance to tell the driver where to stop for inspection. You can have a manual review done by one of your staff members or install cameras that monitor the car at different angles.

The ticket box is optional, but most parking systems include one to indicate the drivers where to park or to tell you how many cars have entered your vicinity. The tickets can also show when they started using the parking space. After the inspection or the ticket has been issued, the gate barrier opens to let the car in.

2. The Parking Space

Unless indicated on the ticket, you can install parking guidance systems to suggest that the parking space underneath is vacant. Some parking systems include parking space protectors to prevent drivers from transferring from one area to another. In automation, these protectors can be activated and deactivated by the ticket issued at the entrance.

Once the car is parked, the parking guidance system will usually indicate, by a red light, that space is already taken. The driver can lock the car and leave it there for some time.

3. The Exit

Once people finish their respective business, they return to the parking space and deactivate the parking space protectors, if any. Some parking systems prefer letting users pay their dues before leaving the parking space, while others prefer paying them at the exit.

Before exiting, you can either manually receive the payment or install a set of access control readers to allow users to pay using their credit cards. You can also have a gate barrier at the exit that activates after confirming users' payment.

As a parking business, you should anticipate different types of users: transient and non-transient. You need to identify non-transient users who leave their cars for a week or longer or use your parking lot more frequently than others.

You can give them exclusive cards to present at the entrance. You can also issue stickers for their car that your parking system can automatically identify so they can enter and leave whenever they want to.

The Bottom Line

Owning the latest technologies involving the parking control system is beneficial. This ensures a less-hassle environment through monitoring vehicles from the entrance to the exit.

If there are any problems, you can quickly review your reports from monitoring cameras or access control software that gathers information for every parking lot user. You can then use these reports to resolve user and parking lot issues.