Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)
Bengaluru, Aug 8: In a move that promises to provide relief from parking woes suffered by frustrated vehicle drivers in the city, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has planned to introduce smart parking system in the heart of the city. Once this is introduced, vehicle owners will be able to get instant information about the location of various parking lots, fee being charged there, which of the lots are vacant etc at any time of the day and plan their visits accordingly.
BBMP commissioner, N Manjunath Prasad, said that smart parking system is being put into practice in 87 roads, where parking slots will be charged. "Tender process of the work has been completed and work order will be issued to contractors soon. Provision is being made for 9,000 pay parking slots in 87 roads initially," he explained. Out of the 9,000 parking slots, 6,000 will be set aside for two-wheelers and 3,000 for cars.
In this system, the vehicle riders can reserve the parking slots of their choice for their vehicles in advance by using their cellphones just like reserving tickets in buses and trains. Mobile app-based smart parking system will empower people to avail of these facilities.
BBMP had announced when presenting its budget that it would introduce pay parking system in the central areas of the city. Two firms, Central Parking Services, and Civic Smart, have shown interest in managing this system, it is said. For the management of pay parks, the facilities have been grouped into A, B and C packages as per which two-wheelers will be charged Rs 15 every hour in zones falling under package A, and Rs 30 for cars. Parking will be charged for minimum of one hour and maximum period for parking of vehicles will be three hours. Vehicles exceeding maximum limit will be penalized. For unauthorized parking, fines will be levied, but bicycles are exempted from payment of parking fee.
An officer of BBMP said that the two agencies which have shown interest in managing the parking system have different concepts and operating systems. So BBMP officials are studying both the proposals and will finalizing on one at an early date.
The number of vehicles in the city is going up steeply every year but parking lots remain the same. The new system will depend on sensors fitted to every slot and CCTVs to see that irregularities do not happen. Vehicle riders have to enter all the details in the machine when parking the vehicle and obtain a ticket. When going back, they have to insert the ticket back in the machine, which then will calculate the charges payable by the drivers. People can pay through debit and credit cards too. If the vehicles use over an hour less that the time they had entered initially, the machine will calculate actual time and charge accordingly.
BBMP is not required to invest anything for this system as the contractors will install and operate the machines. It expects additional revenue of Rs 80 crore a year out of parking fee.