Smart Parking Solutions for Urban Areas: Real Use Cases from Cities to Campuses
- mei-chunou
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
TL;DR: This article presents real use cases of VizioSense’s smart parking solutions — from cities and Park & Ride facilities to airports, retail areas, companies, and campuses. Through projects like Luxembourg, Beauvais, Carrefour, Sanofi, and KAUST, it illustrates how VizioPark and VizioCount enhance parking efficiency, turnover, and user experience across different environments.
The mayor of a city is responsible for planning it in a way that ensures efficiency for citizens, tourists, and local businesses alike. They aim to maintain smooth traffic flow and provide accessible parking options — ideally at low or no cost.
In this article, I summarize how smart parking solutions create value for cities and the communities they serve.
Guiding citizens to empty spots
A smart parking solution is often linked to digital signages indicating the number of available spots for parking lots in the city. This guides citizens towards an empty parking spot efficiently. The information is relayed in real-time from the sensor to a platform making the count of available spots and the sum is sent back to the digital signage.
Major players in France for parking related digital signages are SVMS (Vinci), TTS and Michat.
At VizioSense, we offer two complementary solutions to display real-time parking availability:
VizioPark: monitors each parking spot individually with full accuracy.
Several cities in Luxembourg have partnered with VizioSense and its local integrator to deploy VizioPark.The parking data is also relayed on their website and available on Open Data, meaning that applications developers can reuse the real-time parking data. If all cities do the same, we may soon see this information in our preferred GPS app.
VizioCount: tracks vehicle entries and exits as a virtual barrier. With 98% accuracy, it’s best suited for parking areas that typically empty overnight.
In both Lomme and Avignon, VizioCount has been implemented to manage parking entries and exits. The system provides real-time availability through digital signage, helping reduce congestion, improve parking efficiency, and enhance the overall driver experience. These projects highlight how VizioCount supports cities in building smoother and more sustainable urban mobility.
Detecting the fraud (overstay) & increasing the turnover
Another key value of smart parking systems is their ability to detect vehicles that overstay. When parking spaces are occupied for too long, citizens struggle to access the city center, and local shop owners suffer from reduced customer turnover, ultimately leading to lower revenues.
By detecting such misuse and issuing notifications — not necessarily fines — cities can encourage drivers to follow parking regulations, ensuring fair access for everyone.
Let’s take the example of the city of Beauvais. Beauvais city was facing complaints about the unavailability of free and time-limited parking spots downtown. The mayor was suspecting that the activity of the airport nearby was the root cause but wasn’t sure how big of a problem it was. Just one week after installing VizioSense sensors, the results were clear: over 50% of the vehicles were parked for the entire week, attempting to avoid paying for long-term airport parking.
Beyond municipalities, other players need the efficiency brought by smart parking systems: Airports, Park & Ride parking lots, retail stores, private companies and even university campuses.
Monitoring Park & Ride Parking Lots
Park & Ride parking lots, also known as P+R, are located near train stations and used by commuters from the suburbs who park their cars before taking the train, tramway, or subway. These lots are often free — though not always — and are managed either by companies such as Effia in France or by the railway operators themselves.
When parking is free, cars are usually not allowed to stay overnight; otherwise, they risk being towed away. While smart parking systems make the parking process more efficient, they also play a key role in detecting vehicles that overstay in these areas.
VizioPark has been deployed by both CFL in Luxembourg and Effia in France to improve the management of their Park & Ride (P+R) facilities. By offering spot-by-spot monitoring, the system gives operators a detailed understanding of parking usage and supports data-driven decisions such as lot size adjustments and turnover optimization. It also helps detect overnight stays, ensuring fair and efficient use of spaces by daily commuters. With these insights, operators can better anticipate demand, prevent misuse, and maintain a smoother parking experience for all users.
Enhancing Parking Efficiency in Airports and Retail Areas
Airports manage several types of parking areas — from short 10-minute pick-up zones, to underground lots, and long-stay areas where travelers sometimes need to take a shuttle to reach the terminal. VizioPark is particularly well-suited for long-stay parking lots, while underground ones typically use ultrasonic sensors, and short-stay areas rely on barriers with license plate recognition to enforce payment in case of overstays. Long-stay lots are often large, frequently full, and located far from the airport, so the parking process needs to be smooth enough to ensure passengers don’t miss their shuttles or flights.
The same logic applies to retail parking. Shoppers often head straight for spaces near the entrance, only to find them full, causing unnecessary traffic and frustration. To improve this experience, some retailers have implemented smart parking systems combined with digital signages at each row to guide drivers and make parking more efficient.
At the Carrefour supermarket in Voisins-le-Bretonneux, VizioPark was implemented to manage a parking lot of around 250 spaces and improve the overall shopping experience. The system helps drivers quickly locate available spots, reducing traffic around entrances and minimizing frustration. By making parking faster and more convenient, Carrefour has seen higher customer satisfaction and smoother traffic flow within the parking area, creating a more pleasant start to the shopping journey.
Smart Parking for Corporate and Campus Efficiency
Last but not least, private companies and university campuses are increasingly adopting smart parking systems to improve efficiency. In many cases, their parking lots are not designed to handle peak-hour traffic, and employees arriving late need to be informed early enough to park in more distant areas. The ROI comes from the time saved—employees can start their work earlier and with less stress compared to situations where no smart parking system is in place.
Both King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia and Sanofi in France have adopted VizioSense solutions to make parking more efficient.At KAUST, VizioPark was installed to provide real-time spot monitoring and improve parking availability for professors. Through a mobile app, users can easily check space occupancy, reducing time spent searching for parking and improving traffic circulation around parking areas.
Meanwhile, Sanofi implemented VizioCount to monitor vehicle entries and exits at its office parking facilities. The system supports efficient, time-saving operations and enhances the daily parking experience for employees.
FAQs
Q1: What is the main goal of smart parking systems?
Smart parking systems aim to improve parking efficiency by providing real-time information on available spaces, reducing congestion, and enhancing the overall parking experience for drivers and operators.
Q2: What solutions does VizioSense offer for smart parking?
VizioSense offers two complementary solutions:
VizioPark – monitors each parking spot individually with full accuracy.
VizioCount – tracks vehicle entries and exits as a virtual barrier, with over 98% accuracy.
Q3: How can smart parking help cities detect overstaying vehicles?
Smart parking systems can identify vehicles that remain parked longer than allowed. This helps cities encourage fair parking turnover and ensure access to city centers without necessarily issuing fines.
Q4: What is an example of overstay detection in action?
In some free, time-limited parking areas, sensors have revealed that a significant number of vehicles remain well beyond the allowed duration — sometimes for several days. This insight helps operators identify misuse and improve parking turnover efficiency.
Q5: How are Park & Ride (P+R) facilities benefiting from VizioPark?
P+R facilities use VizioPark’s spot-by-spot monitoring to better understand parking behavior, optimize lot capacity, and detect long-term or overnight stays. This enables more efficient space management and enhances the overall user experience.
Q6: What are the advantages of smart parking in airports?
Airports use different systems depending on the parking type. VizioPark is ideal for long-stay lots, where efficient parking helps passengers catch their shuttles and flights on time.
Q7: How does smart parking improve the retail shopping experience?
Smart parking systems and digital signages guide shoppers to available spaces, reducing traffic and frustration near entrances. This makes parking faster and creates a smoother start to the shopping journey.
Q8: Are smart parking systems also used by private companies and universities?
Yes. Many companies and campuses use smart parking to manage peak-hour congestion, provide real-time space availability, and save time for employees and visitors.
Q9: What is the main return on investment (ROI) of smart parking for organizations?
The ROI primarily comes from time savings — employees or users can start their activities earlier and with less stress thanks to efficient parking management.
Q10: What is the main return on investment (ROI) of smart parking for cities?
For cities, the ROI comes from improved parking turnover and better traffic flow, which make downtown areas more attractive. Higher accessibility brings more visitors and boosts local businesses, generating economic value for the community.
