Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition
In a smart parking lot in Jijiang County, Chongqing, cars are parked neatly. Photo by Sun Kaifang (People's Photo)
In recent years, the development of smart parking has entered the fast lane, and many cities in China have begun to pilot and promote intelligent applications such as "reserved parking spaces", "no sense of charging" and "poleless parking" in an effort to solve the parking problem. The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Public Security recently issued the "Notice on Promoting the Development of Urban Parking Facilities in the Near Future", requiring cities to complete the census of parking facilities and make it public within the year, find out the bottom number of parking resources, dynamically update parking resource data, and organize the pilot work of smart parking of etc (fully automatic electronic charging system).
Efficiently provision resources
In Chengdu, Yang Wei, who works for a cultural and creative company, has become more convenient to park in recent months. In the past, if she had an appointment with a friend, she knew she had arrived at her destination, but she still spent ten minutes or more to find a parking space.
"Now open this public account, you can directly query the vacancies and fees of the parking lots around the destination, make an appointment in advance, and don't have to worry about spending a lot of time to find a parking space, which is really a 'parking artifact'." Yang Wei excitedly told reporters.
The "parking artifact" mentioned by Yang Wei is the "smart parking" service module launched by the Chengdu traffic police "Ronge Xing" public account in May this year. Using this service, citizens can query the parking area in Chengdu online, the number of real-time vacant spaces, the charged price, the service time, the driving route and other information, and support one-click payment of parking fees. At the same time, you can also query the parking lot with sufficient resources of idle parking spaces near your residence or company, and purchase idle parking spaces at different times on a daily or monthly basis.
In recent years, Beijing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan and other places have actively laid out the construction of smart parking facilities, focusing on the pain points of "parking difficulties" travel, and exploring the establishment of relevant management systems and standards. Industry insiders pointed out that parking is more scientific and efficient, which can not only effectively save the time of drivers, but also reduce the operating costs of the management, further improve the operation efficiency of the parking lot, and better realize the rational allocation of resources.
Accommodating parking needs
According to the Ministry of Public Security, as of June this year, the number of motor vehicles in the country reached 384 million, of which 292 million were cars. In the first half of this year, 14.14 million cars were newly registered, an increase of 3.725 million units compared with the same period last year, an increase of 35.76%. In the context of the rapid increase in the number of cars owned by Chinese residents, the demand for parking spaces for residents is also growing.
Experts pointed out that on the one hand, China's existing traditional parking lots are difficult to meet the growing parking demand of residents, on the other hand, the mismatch between parking spaces and parking needs has caused many parking spaces to be idle. In fact, some parts of the city are densely populated with people and vehicles, but there are not enough parking spaces; in some areas, there is an excess of parking spaces, which cannot be fully utilized, but waste resources.
While sharing parking supply and demand information, through the construction of smart parking lots and other facilities, taking into account technical empowerment and hardware support, we can better promote the quality and efficiency of urban parking services.
The "unmanned toll parking lot" on Yangjiaping Zhigang Avenue in Chongqing is the earliest large-scale parking garage under the bridge that adopts a fully intelligent parking management system in the country, which can provide more than 1,000 parking spaces, and the vehicles are fast in and out to complete the "flash payment". There is no toll booth at the entrance of the parking lot, and when the vehicle arrives at the entrance, the system will complete the identification in a short time and release the pole.
In the view of Mo Yuanming, a researcher at the Chongqing Upper Yangtze River Economic Research Institute, the problem of urban "parking difficulties" has spawned smart parking lots, user data and applications from online to offline have given parking lots more value, and the industrial chain around parking, mobile payment, software services and advertising services is taking shape.
Make up for service shortcomings
It is worth noting that in the convenient practice of promoting smart parking, there are also some shortcomings in infrastructure and details that need to be filled. Industry insiders pointed out that it is necessary to summarize some problems in smart parking services in a timely manner, and introduce more targeted construction standards, supporting measures and service rules. For example, in some areas, the supporting facilities of smart parking have not kept up, and the software and hardware configuration has not been opened, resulting in inconvenience for residents to use; in some areas, the application of digital equipment is low in smart parking planning, which affects the traffic efficiency.
In the process of promoting digital applications, we must also pay attention to preventing data security problems that may occur on relevant smart parking platforms. In May this year, residents of a city in Anhui Reported that the smart parking service promoted and used by the local government can bind the license plate number of others, and query the parking time, location, arrears and other information of the relevant vehicles, which may have potential privacy leakage risks.
Similar system security and privacy protection risks are not uncommon. Prior to this, the "Shenyang Smart Parking" platform had suffered malicious cyber attacks. Such platforms hold the driving data and personal information of many users, and are easy targets for criminals. For public service platform operators, how to properly protect users' private information and eliminate privacy and other security risks is a "must-answer question".
Wang Peng, director of the Smart City Laboratory of Beijing Big Data Research Institute, believes that from a technical point of view, it is not difficult to better protect user privacy, in this process, it is necessary to raise the threshold for the development of market information systems, and when the local authorities choose system development and operation companies, they should conduct in-depth research on the technical capabilities of enterprises to ensure the quality of development.