Park and Ride in Munich - A positive experience
by Jorg Stiller

Munich car park operator P+R Park & Ride GmbH is now cashing in on their new all-in-one car park management system from Scheidt & Bachmann which comes complete with a fully integrated CCTV system from GEUTEBRÜCK.

The real-time provision of everyday operational data together with relevant live or recorded pictures, is enabling the company to make savings in time and money while providing their customers with much appreciated additional security.

The new networked CCTV system was a timely replacement for eight separate VCR-based analogue systems, which had become outmoded and increasingly expensive to run. In stark contrast to these, the new system requires little maintenance and servicing and has been in operation for 5 months without a single hitch. Now with live video on tap, barrier faults at remote sites, which used to represent significant lost revenue, can be rectified promptly. And with instant access to high quality, evidential standard recordings, staff find it much easier to investigate and resolve tricky disputes, claims for damage, cases of vandalism or attempted fraud.

Existing infrastructure, such as cameras, cabling and monitors were incorporated into the new system, and each of the company’s eight multi-storey car parks was equipped with a MultiScope II plus digital recorder which can simultaneously record and transmit high resolution pictures round a TCP/IP network. A software interface in the control centre computer enables the car park management system and the CCTV system to exchange data, so that the networked MultiScopes automatically record video clips for each alarm event wherever and whatever the source – be it camera, ticket machine, pay station or barrier. Pre and post alarm recording durations have been selected to suit the application and give a good overview of most situations.

Now that both picture and related event data are stored together in a digital database, finding the relevant pictures is a fast and efficient process and, as Werner Heudecker, the company’s IT manager reports, “We’re particularly impressed with how easy it is to use.”

Event controlled recording is enabling P+R Park & Ride to thwart common non-payment dodges. For example, anyone who obtains a so-called ‘backout’ ticket from the ticket machine by first requesting a car park ticket but then not driving into the car park, can no longer hope to use the backout ticket to persuade the cashier that there was a system fault. Instead, the cashier uses the ticket number to call up the video clip and reveal the customer’s misdeeds.

This same recording function also ensures that P+R Park & Ride have a pictorial record of the condition of every vehicle at it enters their property – which can be valuable evidence in cases where it is claimed that a vehicle was damaged while on the premises. The recording of all activity at the automatic pay stations also deters theft and provides a valuable tool for investigating cash discrepancies, even months later.

Werner Heudecker recalls that the purchasing decision followed a review of quotes from several sources, but that it was a practical demonstration at an exhibition, which convinced the company that the integrated system from Scheidt & Bachmann and GEUTEBRÜCK was the one which would meet all its requirements. “And” he reports, “in the first five months of operation we have had nothing but positive experience.”