The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and local company ST Engineering have launched Singapore’s first barrier-free smart car park to make parking easier and more convenient across NTU’s multiple campuses.

The technology provides ticketless and barrier-free parking developed by the electronics arm of ST Engineering. Paired with the GoParkin mobile app, the system integrates technologies such as automatic number plate recognition, data analytics and mobile payments to help motorists overcome issues encountered in conventional car parks, while delivering car park operators operational and maintenance cost savings and insights on the usage of their car parks.

The system is the university’s latest initiative in line with its NTU Smart Campus vision of harnessing digital and technology-enabled methods to create better learning and living experiences at the university.

“The new smart car park platform is an example of yet another innovation that improves everyday life through technology,” said Subra Suresh, NTU president. “This is in line with the NTU Smart Campus vision whereby we harness the power of technology in a sustainable manner to improve the quality of life of members of our community. The smart car park technology will enable us to enhance the experience of visiting, living and working at NTU for our students, employees and guests. It will also give us better insights and data analytics to improve our services while reducing cost.”

To benefit from the smart car park features, motorists must register via the GoParkin mobile app and provide the required details and credit or debit card information. When they use a smart car park, their registered number plate will be recognised, providing them with seamless entry and exit. The correct parking fee will be calculated at exit and billed to their account.

The system also aggregates parking data and provides real-time information on car park occupancy via the GoParkin app. Motorists are pointed to the closest available parking spots with car park rates, saving them time in searching for available car park lots. Motorists can also apply and pay for season parking via the app.

In addition, the system offers savings to NTU by reducing operational and maintenance costs. The cloud-based platform enables centralised management and control of car park operations, providing the university with an overview of parking occupancy records and an asset management module to help identify preventive maintenance that can extend the value of equipment and prevent costly downtime.

The automatic number plate recognition technology uses video recognition and analytics, which is more cost-effective to maintain compared with a conventional electronic parking system, which uses an in-vehicle unit and cash card for processing parking fee payments. As the mobile app allows motorists to make their parking payments remotely at any time, it eliminates the need for physical payment stations and barriers at the car parks. 

“Smart car parks manage parking in a more effective and sustainable way, reducing air pollution and traffic congestion which improve motorists’ experience,” said Ravinder Singh, president of ST Engineering’s electronics arm. “Beyond these, insights on car park usage can potentially generate new value-added services for motorists and transform business models for car park operators. Smart car parks are integral to the smart cities of the future, and ST Engineering is proud to play a part in advancing NTU’s Smart Campus vision.”

The barrier-free smart car park has started operating at three car parks on NTU’s main Jurong campus. The system will be progressively implemented at all 59 car parks in the university’s campuses including Novena and One-North, and will cover more than 4000 parking lots when completed by the end of 2021.

ST Engineering will provide managed services for all NTU car parks.

A research-intensive public university, NTU has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the engineering, business, science, humanities, arts, social sciences and graduate colleges. It has a medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, established jointly with Imperial College London.

ST Engineering is a Singapore-based technology, defence and engineering group specialising in the aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine sectors. The group employs about 23,000 people across offices in Asia, Europe, Middle East and USA, serving customers in the defence, government and commercial segments in more than 100 countries.

With more than 700 smart city projects across 130 cities in its track record, the group continues to help transform cities through its suite of smart mobility, smart security and smart environment products. ST Engineering reported revenue of $7.9bn in 2019.