Parking safety and Covid-19

We believe we owe you a quick update regarding the coronavirus situation and our team: At Simplyture, we are working just as hard as usual to maintain the quality of our services. Luckily for us, we are all able to work from home with very few constraints. You can expect the same level of effort and care from our Support, Operations and Development teams.

Regarding parking as a whole, we are aware that people are opting to use their cars as a way to avoid public transportation for their daily needs. We prioritise the health and safety of everyone and now, more than ever, is crucial for us that people are able to park their vehicles with no constraints or stress. Life is being hard enough as it is and we need to keep our spirits up.

At Simplyture, we want to offer you a few guidelines to help you deal with parking during these trying times, especially regarding payment:

Mobile and online payment options

We integrate our system with mobile apps like EasyPark in Denmark and Sweden, or ParkLink in Norway, among many others – so that you can pay for your parking session using your phone. In some cases, there is also the possibility of paying online after you leave the facility, from the comfort and safety of your own home.

Try to figure out if the parking facility you are visiting offers such options. This is different for each car park so it might be smart to do some research online beforehand, or pay attention for indications and cues when you arrive at the facility.

Here’s a list of our mobile app partners. Denmark: EasyPark, ParkPark, ParkMan | Norway: ParkLink, EasyPark | Sweden: EasyPark

Good practices when using the Simplyture payment machines

Fear not – the payment machines are still and will keep being fully functional during the pandemic. If you need to use a payment machine, there’s plenty of ways you can minimize the risks for yourself and for others.

Practice good hygiene

Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly. Ideally do it before and after using the payment machine. If you need to cough and/or sneeze, do it into your elbow to avoid particles from reaching other people.

Contactless payment

Avoid using coins, and opt for the contactless card terminal. This ensures that you touch the casing as little as possible, thus minimizing the physical contact you have with the machine.

Likewise, it might be a good option to opt out of the payment receipts — it’s not only the best option for our planet, but shortens the overall contact with the payment machine.

Waiting in line? Keep distance of 1-2 meters

Luckily, our payment machine was developed so that the user journey is short and quick; however, in the rare case that multiple people start queuing, it is recommended that everyone stands 1-2 meters apart from each other.

​Stay safe, stay calm, and look after each other. We will beat this virus sooner than later!

Meanwhile, we recommend you to keep up with the health guidelines regarding Covid-19 from the Danish Health Authority:


GENERAL ADVICE REGARDING THE CORONAVIRUS

From a traditional background in technical installations to being the most reliable supplier of the latest cutting-edge technologies

make:net has over 50 highly-skilled professionals engaged daily in the consulting and execution parts of the profession: from electricians, technicians, installers and project managers to dedicated administrative staff.

“If you can think it – we can make it” is the company’s motto

Part of the credit for the development in the technological field can be linked to the successful collaboration that make:net and Simplyture have built up over the past few years. The two companies share a common foundation of values based on trust, decency and, not least, a curiosity about new technologies and the ambition to make everyday life easier for their customers.

Kasper Aasberg, Head of Technology Development at make:net, is personally involved in the collaboration with Simplyture, a partnership he describes as two innovative partners coming together to create simple and futuristic solutions for the benefit of the end users.

make:net is proud to be a part of this ongoing collaboration.

When visiting make:net, you can clearly see that they continuously test their equipment. On the outside, cameras are mounted on the facade – not for the primary purpose of monitoring, but to run continuous tests, such as license plate recognition process analysis and others. In the yard, stands an automatic booth system whose sole function is to provide test results to the employees who are developing the latest technologies, such as Simplyture’s parking solutions or bitcoin slot games.

Head of Technology Development at make:net – Kasper Aasberg – mentions Simplyture’s name as the engine of cooperation between the two companies. The name is a contraction of “simple” and “adventure” – and covers that the whole purpose of Simplyture’s business: to create an easier journey for drivers who seek to waste less time worrying about parking.

make:net are always at the forefront of innovation

Technology that Simplifies

When make:net creates solutions for customers, they like to do so in a format that takes into account future extensions or redevelopments. “We want to think sustainably – also on behalf of our customers.”

Do you want to learn more about the services make:net provides? Take a look at their brochure (in danish) or visit their website:


VISIT MAKE:NET’S WEBSITE

Why we need Smart Parking Solutions

Even if you don’t live in a particularly big city, you probably consider parking a car to be something complicated and troublesome. It doesn’t matter if you have just arrived at work, decided you need to go to the shopping center to buy socks, finally found your hotel after getting lost in the traffic in a foreign city, visited someone at the hospital or picked up your friend at the airport – the first step when you arrive is to ensure that your car is parked safely. Once you finally find the perfect facility to park your car, you still have to spend a few extra minutes at the entrance – first, you need to pick up a ticket and wait for the barriers to raise and let you in. Then comes the not-so-fun challenge of finding a parking spot.

Eventually comes the need to leave the facility and find the ticket which always seems to get lost and almost causes a mini panic attack while you search every pocket thoroughly.

‘Did I leave it in the car? Did I lose it? Oh , yes I did!‘ ?

Now, where did I put that friggin’ ticket?

If all of this sounds like your daily routine – we feel sorry for you and we know just how much you just want to scream and vent out your frustrations at this point – but you will probably have to contact the support first and then pay an extra fee because you lost a piece of paper.

After all that hassle, you can finally leave the parking facility – But wait, there’s just so much that can still go wrong: first, if we are talking about rush hour, you can expect to be stuck in line for god knows how long, or if any of the barriers are broken you better have an interesting book in your car, as you will probably have to wait a ridiculous amount of time before someone comes to save you.

Sounds frustrating? Well, it is.

You might ask – what’s the magical solution then? If society is ready to roll out a Cybertruck, why are parking facilities still stuck in the last century?

Just because Elon Musk hasn’t invented his own parking solution, doesn’t mean parking can’t also be SMART!

Wait, where’s the Tesla of parking facilities then?

The Simplyture Parking Intelligence Solution is here to solve all your problems so that parking is no longer a curse in your everyday life.

Here’s what we’ve been doing:

  1. No more barriers

Barriers could be annoying. That’s why we decided to remove them completely. This way, getting in and out of the facility is much faster. Installing cameras at the entrance and the exit means that vehicles are detected and the whole parking process is automatic.

  1. No more tickets

No barriers means no tickets. We use smart cameras to scan the drivers’ license plates. We use intelligent algorithms to even handle number plates not scanned correctly, without human intervention. It’s easy for both facilities owners and their clients.

  1. Pay as you like

We offer multiple payment methods which means you can pay using your preferred method: traditional payment via a payment machine at the location, mobile payment through third partner apps, and online payment even after you leave the facility.

  1. Prizes and other perks

With Simplyture’s free-flow parking system, carpark operators have been offering many unique integrations and the possibility to receive promotional codes and other benefits – for example, extra hours of free parking, special daily offers, discounts, integrations with cinemas and stores, and many others! The sky is the limit!

Visit Fisketorvet’s parking facility in central Copenhagen if you want to feel like you’ve stepped into the future

What are the main frustrations you personally encounter everyday as a parking facility user?

Here at Simplyture we’re always willing to explore new and innovative ways to improve the parking experience for everybody — it doesn’t matter how crazy it is, we want to listen to you. Let us know what you think about parking, both the good and the bad: info@simplyture.com

Do you want to learn more about Simplyture Parking Intelligence and how we’re revolutionizing the parking industry?


READ ABOUT OUR SOLUTIONS!

Are Smart Parking Solutions eco-friendly?

Smart Parking Solutions have the goal to simplify the parking journey for everyone, but there is a question that many ask but might not have the answer to – how relevant are these solutions when the fight against fossil-fueled vehicles is increasing and, lastly, how ecologically-friendly can parking really be?

Within the parking industry, the revolution has been towards removing pesky barriers and other components by implementing camera-based license plate recognition and cloud solutions that let the operators monitor their facilities from anywhere at a much lower cost. The selling-point of solutions like Simplyture’s has often been the ease-of-use and increased revenue, the multiple payment options, and the marketing possibilities.

But as we have just entered a new decade that demands more from environmental politics and that is hyper-aware of climate change, it is now time to also consider whether these solutions fit environmental awareness.

So, how is a Smart Parking Solution friendlier than a barrier one?

When a car is driving in and out of a parking facility, a free-flow solution leads to less congestion and interruptions. Each single car driving smoothly saves a few precious seconds – which might not seem significant – but when there’s millions and millions of cars on the roads every single day, it totals a surprising amount of carbon emissions.

Barriers are also an outdated and heavy burden that is no longer relevant to ensuring parking lot safety as the license-plate recognition cameras are a much more efficient way to track who has – or has not – paid for their parking period.

At the same time, the mere act of parking creates paper waste. Whether in the form of parking tickets or just printed receipts, Smart Parking Solutions fight paper waste by digitalizing and storing the transactions in the cloud and by making parking receipts possible but discouraged.

While there’s still ways to go, Smart Parking Solutions are a solid step towards innovation and sustainability in a world that is no longer taking any excuses.

Here are some of our best tips to diminish the environmental impact of your parking facility:

How to make your parking facility greener?

1. Opt for a Smart Parking Solution

A Smart Parking Solution that is free-flow, barrier-free and ticketless uses fewer hardware components. Storing all your parking facility information in the cloud is not only safer and cheaper, but much more ecological: A cloud solution lowers the average power usage by 84$ and carbon emissions by 88%!

It’s not only futuristic, but better for the planet.


2. Make your facility electric car-friendly

Become the preferred carpark for eco-friendly vehicles by offering them incentives such as promotional codes with special discounts. Install a fair amount of charging stations so that electric car owners feel welcomed instead of excluded.

Reward people who choose to live greener!

3. Adjust your price structure to avoid overcrowding

Raise your prices when your carpark is more frequented and lower them when the occupancy is lower. By doing this, you’ll give your visitors an incentive to visit during time periods they would probably never consider! Redistributing the flow of people driving in and out at certain hours of the day results in fewer lines and shorter idle periods, lowering the amount of unnecessary CO2 emissions.


4. In the same vein – optimize the structure of your carpark

Parking facilities can be complicated to navigate especially for first-time visitors, so here are some tips to make yours more user-friendly:

A well-designed parking facility makes it easier for visitors to find their desired parking spots, making for a smoother (and happier!) journey. If you want to go the extra mile, why not install some parking areas for bicycles, or maybe even consider powering your facility with solar panels?

5. Encourage online and mobile payment

Not only this diminishes the amount of maintenance your payment machines will need over time as they will be used more sparsely, but by reducing the amount of receipts printed you’ll be saving trees, using less oil and water!

Another advantage of implementing an online payment system is that you can implement it directly on your webpage – thus increasing the number of visitors who will be up to date regarding your facility / business updates – so if you want to advertise your new green policies, it’s the easiest way to do it.

All in all, there is a lot your Parking Facility can do for the environment

There are no perfect solutions. No one can argue that driving cars greatly increases our carbon footprint, but there are plenty of ways to mitigate their effect. There are hundreds of thousands of parking facilities in operation all over the world right now, with millions of daily transactions. Even if change often tends to be intimidating, there are no excuses to stand by old-fashioned parking solutions that can aggravate the problem by creating long lines, printing millions of unnecessary tickets, and using outdated hardware components.

By implementing a Smart Parking Solution, you will make your customers happier, lower your costs, and also become a part of the solution and not the problem.

Do you want to know how Simplyture Parking Intelligence can help you make your carpark more environmentally-friendly?


LET’S HAVE A CHAT!

“When an idea becomes reality” – A successful collaboration between Simplyture and Metalwo

At Simplyture we know that part of our strength lies in the quality of our partners and suppliers. We’ve carefully chosen partners we strongly believe in, and we’re constantly inspired by their passion and care. Going the extra mile ensures that we offer a better user-journey for our customers and top-notch quality in both our hardware and software solutions.

In the case of our ADK – Access Control, we outsourced the hardware components to Metalwo while we focused on the software development at Simplyture. This was a process where needs were evaluated on both sides, and the product was perfected thanks to Metalwo’s know-how and meticulousness.

Metalwo is an innovative company, created in 1939 in Aarhus, that focuses on the manufacture and tailoring of quality metal-work solutions, in collaboration with their customers. Simplyture’s CEO, Jonas Ørting, said that “The collaboration between Metalwo and Simplyture is a perfect example of where an established company collaborates with a start-up – successfully. With their expertise in designing and manufacturing beautiful aluminum products mixed with our software skills, resulted in a user-friendly solution, now used by millions.”

In our philosophy, long-term partnerships are the key to achieving mutual success. We are committed to deliver the best business value to our partners and suppliers.

We recommend you visit Metalwo’s website to learn more about their projects and this particular collaboration with Simplyture.