Jiadu Xintai Technology Co., Ltd. Xu Jianming
This article has been published in the October 2019 issue of "China Security"
The development status of smart parking in smart cities
In the construction of a smart city, transportation is a key area. "Smart parking" is undoubtedly an important reflection of the construction of a smart city. Smart parking is considered the cornerstone of a smart city. A smart city starts with the realization of smart parking.
The smart parking system integrates the functions of parking lot information management, query, parking space reservation, reverse car search, payment, and facility sharing. It not only optimizes the parking management process, but also reduces the parking time cost of car owners. In the past few years, more than 200 companies have participated in smart parking. However, in the smart parking industry, it is necessary to carry out informatization, standardization, and networking transformation of the parking lot through software and hardware systems, which leads to a high threshold for this industry. Unfortunately, many companies have fallen due to the impact of capital. Most companies have not really achieved full coverage of regional parking lots. With the arrival of the capital winter, the smart parking industry has shown a trend of ups and downs. From the end of 2017 to the second half of 2019, with the continuous development of the smart parking industry, the game among enterprises has also intensified. "Price wars", "grouping for warmth", "financing", and "mergers and acquisitions" have been staged in turn. Players have seized the opportunity through different strategic methods to gain a foothold in the new situation. Today, the entire smart parking industry is rapidly heating up, and smart parking has entered a high-level stage. Starting from the current and future new pattern, the smart parking model will develop towards ecology, breaking the boundaries of companies through socialization, completing the reintegration of traditional business elements in the sharing economy era, and completing a new competitive pattern such as openness, sharing, and value increment exchange. In recent years, under the guidance of the national smart city and "Internet +" policy, the smart parking industry has developed rapidly. In most first-tier and second-tier cities, smart parking has been applied to a certain extent. At the same time, in order to improve the quality of urban transportation and people's livelihood, the government is paying more and more attention to the smart parking industry. Major cities across the country have responded to the country’s call for smart parking, and in order to solve the actual problems of urban parking, they have actively introduced a series of relevant policies for the smart parking industry, and are intensively carrying out the promotion of smart parking projects and promoting the construction of smart parking projects. For example, Shenzhen has added more than 400,000 parking spaces, Xining has achieved full coverage of parking space information in the city, and Qingdao has built a city-level smart parking integrated platform. At the same time, at the moment when the contradiction of "difficult parking" is becoming more and more prominent, the commercial value and social value of the smart parking industry have been highlighted. At the same time, through the promotion and market education of leading companies, parking lot operators generally have a higher awareness and acceptance of smart parking solutions; for individual car owners, they have a high evaluation of the superior parking experience brought by smart parking. For smart parking equipment, the intelligent part of parking products, its stability, life, weather resistance and large-scale communication management problems have basically been overcome, coupled with the introduction of new technologies and video surveillance and smart parking The products and technologies of vehicle solutions are becoming more mature and perfect, and the business logic and profit model of enterprises are also clearer. From all dimensions, the market demand of the smart parking industry has improved qualitatively compared to the past.
The importance of smart parking to the development of smart cities
With the continuous growth of urban population and the continuous expansion of urban scale, various "urban diseases" have become more prominent, and "difficult, chaotic, and expensive parking" has become a "wound" that is difficult to heal in urban development. In an environment where parking spaces are increasingly scarce and manual management costs are gradually increasing, the public's parking experience has plummeted, seriously affecting the people's life happiness index and the progress of smart city construction. With technological innovation, the pace of development of my country's innovative smart cities is gradually accelerating, and many "big mountains" that lie on the road to building smart cities are being moved away by technological innovation. For example, an important carrier of smart cities-smart transportation. Economic development, transportation first, especially after "smart transportation" was included in the "13th Five-Year Plan" transportation key plan, local governments continued to make efforts in the fields of intelligent transportation, interconnection and convenient travel, and continued to push it in depth. Most of the urban traffic problems derived from "difficult parking", such as traffic congestion and frequent accidents, are being gradually solved by innovative smart parking. But to build an innovative smart city, it is not enough for smart parking to stay on the surface. It needs to provide city managers with multi-dimensional coverage and more efficient and accurate solutions. When there are few cars and many spaces, parking is a simple matter; when there are many cars and few spaces, parking needs to be managed; when the number of private cars far exceeds the existing parking space load, the urban smart parking system is particularly important. Although only one word is added to smart parking and parking, the concept is very different - behind smart parking is the support of the latest technologies such as cloud computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data processing. Smart parking is based on parking space resources and comprehensively utilizes various technologies to make urban parking resources networked, informatized, and systematized. It has the capabilities of data collection, analysis, prediction, control, and guidance in the scope of time and space, and realizes standardized management and efficient use of urban parking resources. Smart parking belongs to the segmented application of smart cities, but it is a special industry. Government taxation, traffic management and other departments, as well as parking lot operators and consumers, are not only participants in the construction of smart parking, but also the beneficiaries of smart achievements. Therefore, smart parking projects need to be integrated and coordinated. If a smart city wants to build a brand-new smart life system including people's livelihood, environmental protection, public safety, urban services, and industrial and commercial activities, then smart parking, as the "nerve ending" of a smart city, is an indispensable "booster" in building a smart city. Smart parking is based on the support of the smart parking hardware system and the smart parking big data cloud control platform. It can provide a complete set of solutions for city managers. The service dimension covers car owner applications, government applications, Operating platform, financial platform, data analysis products and open platform. Through technological innovation, not only can the parking space resources "live" and help car owners effectively solve parking problems; it can also generate a saturation heat map of the parking lot, open up parking information, provide parking index analysis, assist traffic research and judgment, and assist government management departments in macro-management and control of urban parking, escorting the rapid and healthy development of smart cities.
Difficulties and bottlenecks in the development of smart parking in the construction of smart cities
For the smart parking industry, although there is a large gap in market demand, strong national policy support, and the emergence of various new technologies, the industry is still in its infancy and has not yet realized a clear business model. Coupled with the uniqueness of the parking industry, it faces many difficulties. The vast development space also brings a very fierce competitive environment. At present, many enterprises in the field of smart parking have not yet found an effective and reasonable revenue model. Development difficulties and bottlenecks are mainly reflected in the following aspects:
First, various types of parking resources are independent and difficult to integrate. In the traditional business of the domestic parking market, the identities of practitioners are complex: there are official participation in the management of public resources, commercial operations with diverse sources, and private owners who monopolize a site. The resource threshold is extremely high and the coordination of interests is complicated. Although shopping malls, hospitals, communities, and on-street parking lots can be seen everywhere, all types of parking resources are "separate". The many and complex members of the property rights parties of the parking lot resources make the issue of land enclosure a difficult problem.
Second, smart parking-related apps are incompatible with each other, and industry standards are missing. The Internet has realized the optimal allocation of resources for the originally blocked information. Although the number of various parking apps has sprung up rapidly, the utilization rate is not high. The biggest and prominent problem of the smart parking app is the incompatibility of the system, which leads to technical and capital barriers in information sharing, which violates the original intention of smart parking to revitalize the stock market and forms an artificial information island. Due to mutual incompatibility, the range of parking lots covered by various smart parking apps is different, and the operation methods also have their own characteristics, causing a lot of trouble to users, causing some parking lots to refuse to cooperate, and many car owners have also been abandoned.
Third, the current smart parking is not "smart" enough, and the level of intelligence is low. Nowadays, many companies are still stuck in the concept of "Internet + Parking", staying at the stage of information collection and sharing, unable to analyze parking information and data, and propose appropriate city-level parking solutions. For the smart parking industry, it is not only necessary to solve the parking problems of specific car owners, but also to solve the parking problems of the entire city, and even improve the traffic problems of the entire city. There is still a long way to go for smart parking to achieve true "smartness".
Fourth, there is a shortage of parking spaces. The growth of cars is out of proportion to the growth of parking spaces, and the shortage of parking spaces is becoming more and more serious. Statistics show that in 2018, the average parking gap rate in the four cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen was 83.3%, and there were at least 2 million vehicles in each city without regular parking spaces, while the gap in parking spaces across the country was as high as 50 million. The shortage of parking spaces is still one of the main reasons why my country's smart parking is difficult to develop rapidly. At the same time, according to the Ministry of Communications' "Intelligent Transportation Development Strategy for Transportation Industry", it is predicted that the number of automobiles in my country will exceed 200 million in 2020. With the increase in car ownership, there will be huge space for additional parking lots in my country in the future. Focusing on the present and benefiting the long-term, increasing the supply of basic parking spaces, optimizing various parking resources through smart parking to make full use of regional parking spaces, and solving the problem of resource asymmetry are effective means to achieve the dynamic balance of vehicles-roads-parking spaces. In general, various difficulties and pain points have restricted the development speed of the industry, which also shows the necessity and urgency of China's development of smart parking. Smart parking is the most important part of smart transportation. The most urgent thing at the moment is to find a breakthrough and solve the existing traffic pain points.
Application case analysis of smart parking in smart city
If a smart city wants to build a brand-new smart life system including people's livelihood, environmental protection, public safety, urban services, and industrial and commercial activities, then smart parking is a necessary link to enter a smart city. The survey shows that a car is parked 95% of the time, so the space-time dislocation sharing of parking resources must be only an auxiliary means. In recent years, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other places have made many new attempts at smart parking while developing smart cities. Urban smart parking includes two aspects: hardware construction and software construction, among which: hardware is to expand the space of urban parking through the construction of three-dimensional parking equipment; software is to integrate urban parking resources through the construction of Internet software systems. Through the real-time collection of parking information and the synchronous update of real-time data, a unified static traffic management platform is built to facilitate the development of dynamic traffic. It should be said that smart parking not only optimizes the parking management link, but also reduces the cost of parking time, which is the development trend of solving parking problems in the future. Taking Hangzhou as an example, the "one center and four platforms" built by the Hangzhou City Management Committee, that is, through the road toll platform, parking guidance platform, parking lot management platform, "China Good Parking" APP, etc. form a big data cloud platform to provide Hangzhou citizens with transparent, real-time, and easy-to-communicate intelligent parking guidance methods. After the berth renovation has been fully completed, citizens can use the "Caring Urban Management" mobile app to search for their desired destination, which parking lots are nearby, how many vacant parking spaces are available, and the hourly charging standard are all "on the screen". After the target parking lot is selected, driving path planning and navigation can also be realized. At the same time, real-time inquiries can also be made through the portal website of Hangzhou Urban Management Committee. The above-mentioned parking guidance functions will be implemented simultaneously on the "China Good Parking" APP. In addition to providing car owners with a series of services integrating reservation, guidance, payment and other functions, the "China Good Parking" APP also realizes functions such as paying parking fees in some areas, making parking more convenient. The realization of these intelligent functions not only eliminates the complexity and redundancy of manual operations, but also effectively improves the efficiency of the use of parking spaces and the overall efficiency of payment. Hangzhou's smart parking project adopts the PPP model, and the enterprise and the government have established a community relationship of "benefit sharing, risk sharing, and full cooperation". "The PPP model can not only help reduce the government's financial burden, but also reduce the investment risk of enterprises. The government is willing to introduce private capital to participate in public services and support the data exchange between government and enterprises. All data will be included in the urban smart parking cloud platform to better serve the city and the people. In addition to realizing the above smart functions, smart parking has more development areas. For example, in the payment of parking fees, ETCP is It is unique and truly achieves "zero time-consuming" payment. Car owners who use ETCP to park do not need to queue up anxiously at the exit to pay the toll. They can drive the car directly out of the parking lot without any operation, and the corresponding parking fee will be automatically deducted. Car owners only need to associate a payment account on the APP, and then they can enter and exit the parking lot in one step. To achieve such convenient smart parking, it is necessary to install smart devices at the entrance and exit gates of the parking lot, combined with the software system of ETCP. ETCP has started a free promotion model. Smart parking is not about interconnecting parking lots through the Internet and publishing information or only realizing electronic payment for entering and leaving the parking lot, but on the basis of intelligent technology transformation, through the Internet as a carrier, with Internet thinking and operation methods, to establish user entrances and data sources. Through user behavior habits and data analysis, real-time prediction of the use of parking space resources in a certain parking lot in the next few hours will become a "barometer" for car owners to travel and park, so as to achieve the purpose of alleviating regional traffic congestion and green shared travel. For example, "A is inquiring about the vacancy of a certain parking lot, B is navigating the road to the parking lot, and C is looking for a parking lot in a certain area... ETCP can predict the parking situation of the parking lot or area in the next 1 to 4 hours based on the data of user behaviors, trajectories, and user portraits." Tan Long is not dreaming. Currently, the ETCP system application generates more than 10TB of parking image recording data per month, and the system generates more than 30 million pieces of parking data information per month. With such a large database, it can comprehensively improve the utilization efficiency of parking spaces in terms of resources. Of course, the pace of smart parking is not limited to the "parking runway". In addition to building the core system of smart parking, the platform must also be extended to new areas related to smart parking, creating a "car life" platform, and on the basis of smart parking, set foot in a series of new businesses such as insurance, refueling, and car washing appointments. The smart parking cloud platform is not only a real-time, shared, city-wide parking information platform, but also an all-round smart car life under big data. Smart parking is an ever-expanding rigid demand for smart city construction; it is a fast and convenient humanized demand for car owners. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market. The parking lot is "one step in place". To achieve such convenient smart parking, it is necessary to install smart devices at the entrance and exit gates of the parking lot, combined with the software system of ETCP. ETCP has started a free promotion model. Smart parking is not about interconnecting parking lots through the Internet and publishing information or only realizing electronic payment for entering and leaving the parking lot, but on the basis of intelligent technology transformation, through the Internet as a carrier, with Internet thinking and operation methods, to establish user entrances and data sources. Through user behavior habits and data analysis, real-time prediction of the use of parking space resources in a certain parking lot in the next few hours will become a "barometer" for car owners to travel and park, so as to achieve the purpose of alleviating regional traffic congestion and green shared travel. For example, "A is inquiring about the vacancy of a certain parking lot, B is navigating the road to the parking lot, and C is looking for a parking lot in a certain area... ETCP can predict the parking situation of the parking lot or area in the next 1 to 4 hours based on the data of user behaviors, trajectories, and user portraits." Tan Long is not dreaming. Currently, the ETCP system application generates more than 10TB of parking image recording data per month, and the system generates more than 30 million pieces of parking data information per month. With such a large database, it can comprehensively improve the utilization efficiency of parking spaces in terms of resources. Of course, the pace of smart parking is not limited to the "parking runway". In addition to building the core system of smart parking, the platform must also be extended to new areas related to smart parking, creating a "car life" platform, and on the basis of smart parking, set foot in a series of new businesses such as insurance, refueling, and car washing appointments. The smart parking cloud platform is not only a real-time, shared, city-wide parking information platform, but also an all-round smart car life under big data. Smart parking is an ever-expanding rigid demand for smart city construction; it is a fast and convenient humanized demand for car owners. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market. The parking lot is "one step in place". To achieve such convenient smart parking, it is necessary to install smart devices at the entrance and exit gates of the parking lot, combined with the software system of ETCP. ETCP has started a free promotion model. Smart parking is not about interconnecting parking lots through the Internet and publishing information or only realizing electronic payment for entering and leaving the parking lot, but on the basis of intelligent technology transformation, through the Internet as a carrier, with Internet thinking and operation methods, to establish user entrances and data sources. Through user behavior habits and data analysis, real-time prediction of the use of parking space resources in a certain parking lot in the next few hours will become a "barometer" for car owners to travel and park, so as to achieve the purpose of alleviating regional traffic congestion and green shared travel. For example, "A is inquiring about the vacancy of a certain parking lot, B is navigating the road to the parking lot, and C is looking for a parking lot in a certain area... ETCP can predict the parking situation of the parking lot or area in the next 1 to 4 hours based on the data of user behaviors, trajectories, and user portraits." Tan Long is not dreaming. Currently, the ETCP system application generates more than 10TB of parking image recording data per month, and the system generates more than 30 million pieces of parking data information per month. With such a large database, it can comprehensively improve the utilization efficiency of parking spaces in terms of resources. Of course, the pace of smart parking is not limited to the "parking runway". In addition to building the core system of smart parking, the platform must also be extended to new areas related to smart parking, creating a "car life" platform, and on the basis of smart parking, set foot in a series of new businesses such as insurance, refueling, and car washing appointments. The smart parking cloud platform is not only a real-time, shared, city-wide parking information platform, but also an all-round smart car life under big data. Smart parking is an ever-expanding rigid demand for smart city construction; it is a fast and convenient humanized demand for car owners. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market. The situation has become a "barometer" for car owners to travel and park, so as to achieve the purpose of alleviating regional traffic congestion and green shared travel. For example, "A is inquiring about the vacancy of a certain parking lot, B is navigating the road to the parking lot, and C is looking for a parking lot in a certain area... ETCP can predict the parking situation of the parking lot or area in the next 1 to 4 hours based on the data of user behaviors, trajectories, and user portraits." Tan Long is not dreaming. Currently, the ETCP system application generates more than 10TB of parking image recording data per month, and the system generates more than 30 million pieces of parking data information per month. With such a large database, it can comprehensively improve the utilization efficiency of parking spaces in terms of resources. Of course, the pace of smart parking is not limited to the "parking runway". In addition to building the core system of smart parking, the platform must also be extended to new areas related to smart parking, creating a "car life" platform, and on the basis of smart parking, set foot in a series of new businesses such as insurance, refueling, and car washing appointments. The smart parking cloud platform is not only a real-time, shared, city-wide parking information platform, but also an all-round smart car life under big data. Smart parking is an ever-expanding rigid demand for smart city construction; it is a fast and convenient humanized demand for car owners. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market. The situation has become a "barometer" for car owners to travel and park, so as to achieve the purpose of alleviating regional traffic congestion and green shared travel. For example, "A is inquiring about the vacancy of a certain parking lot, B is navigating the road to the parking lot, and C is looking for a parking lot in a certain area... ETCP can predict the parking situation of the parking lot or area in the next 1 to 4 hours based on the data of user behaviors, trajectories, and user portraits." Tan Long is not dreaming. Currently, the ETCP system application generates more than 10TB of parking image recording data per month, and the system generates more than 30 million pieces of parking data information per month. With such a large database, it can comprehensively improve the utilization efficiency of parking spaces in terms of resources. Of course, the pace of smart parking is not limited to the "parking runway". In addition to building the core system of smart parking, the platform must also be extended to new areas related to smart parking, creating a "car life" platform, and on the basis of smart parking, set foot in a series of new businesses such as insurance, refueling, and car washing appointments. The smart parking cloud platform is not only a real-time, shared, city-wide parking information platform, but also an all-round smart car life under big data. Smart parking is an ever-expanding rigid demand for smart city construction; it is a fast and convenient humanized demand for car owners. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market. It is an ever-expanding rigid demand; for car owners, it is a fast and convenient humanized demand. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market. It is an ever-expanding rigid demand; for car owners, it is a fast and convenient humanized demand. Therefore, no matter from the perspective of the government or the perspective of people's livelihood, the smart parking market has broad prospects and is a trillion-level market.
Development prospects and trends of smart parking in smart cities
As a new creature, the smart parking industry is a segmented application in the field of smart cities. Smart parking is a special industry. The government, traffic control department, parking operators and parking consumers are not only the participants in the construction of smart parking, but also the beneficiaries of smart achievements. At present, from the perspective of the entire industry chain, the structure of China's smart parking market is relatively fragmented, mainly based on smart parking equipment vendors, smart parking solution providers, and Internet parking operators. Among them, the smart parking solution is a link between the past and the future. The provider mainly provides the smart parking system for the parking lot and the smart parking APP product for the To C user side. In 2019, smart parking has entered a high-level stage and is closely related to the Internet of Vehicles. Starting from the current and future new pattern, the smart parking model will develop towards ecologicalization, break the boundaries of companies through socialization, complete the reintegration of traditional business elements in the era of sharing economy, and complete a new competitive pattern such as openness, sharing, and value increment exchange. It is the strength and accuracy of the algorithms and applications that make smart parking systems successful, capturing real-time data over large areas, combining it with historical data sets and benchmarks, and presenting it in an actionable way that enables adopters to truly optimize parking lots.
epilogue
From the perspective of national policies, the policy foundation in the field of smart parking is quite in place. Technologies such as Internet of Things, big data, license plate recognition, and online payment are relatively mature. The market demand for smart parking systems is rising rapidly. Parking space sharing will become another new sharing ecology after bicycle and car sharing. In the long run, the expansion of parking lots, the promotion of parking data operations, and the promotion of new industrial models such as Internet parking services will drive a huge potential demand for the smart parking industry. Looking at the smart parking industry, compared with the explosive growth in the first year of the smart parking industry, behind the new round of industry heating up, the factors supporting investors' entry are no longer the development vision brought by models and concepts, but more considerations from the direction of enterprise layout and operation. Enterprises favored by capital not only need strong online operation capabilities, but also need a rich layout of offline parking resources.