The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a devastating financial blow to every sector around the world. Amongst other impacted sectors, parking sites at airports, malls and hospitals in South Africa were forced to open up their garages in order to limit physical interaction. This resulted in a massive loss of revenue to our landlords and customers, due to the inability to charge for parking.
The world of parking, as we know it, has changed. However, where there’s change, there’s opportunity for evolution.
At HUB Parking Technology South Africa, we started looking at alternatives to support our landlords and to open parking garages at the different establishments, making their operations efficient and safe at the same time. With the drive to reduce the spread of Covid-19, we had to look at parking services from a fresh new perspective, and from the very first approach to the car park: the access.
Realizing that drivers will be reluctant to touch lane station buttons to dispense tickets, we came up with the immediate solution for all entry lanes to be set up with an auto dispense ticket function. This is a standard feature, activated when a vehicle drives onto the loop, which is used for activating/arming the station. However, we also realized that should a site have proximity readers for the use of Tenants/Virtual Value Cards/Pensioners, the system will not be able to differentiate between the above users and shoppers/visitors.
As a result, HUB Parking Technology South Africa started testing the use of touchless buttons on lane stations, at our head office in Johannesburg South Africa. With a tested solution, we rolled out the touchless buttons to a site in Johannesburg, to monitor the performance installed in a live environment and the solution worked brilliantly! See how, with this quick video.
In addition to replacing the entry buttons for tickets with touchless buttons, we also managed to migrate the intercom buttons on lane exits and pay stations. This safe and affordable solution enables our landlords to open parking garages & generate additional income, without spending an arm & a leg, which they do not have currently.
Now, contactless matters most. The aftermaths of this pandemic will be with us for a while, and the timing could not be more suited to implement a reliable and functioning solution, which immediately changes a car park to touchless. Coming back to normal operations as soon as possible!