Leading parking management and transport ticketing provider Parkeon says its parking terminals could soon be monitoring air quality in towns and cities across the UK, as local authorities consider ways to tackle roadside pollution.
Parkeon has developed a module for its Strada range of terminals that will capture air quality data and enable authorities to monitor levels of particulate matter and vehicle emissions, such as CO?. The innovation comes amid reports of government initiatives to try to cut levels of diesel emissions in 35 towns and cities across England. Measures could include a ban on polluting vehicles from entering the most congested areas or issuing daily charges.
Parkeon’s terminal-based Park & Breathe system integrates air quality and noise sensors within the solar-powered Strada terminal and relays the data to a secure portal that can be accessed by environmental authorities. The unit was launched in the UK at this week’s Parkex show (top) in Birmingham, but had made its official debut at a show in Amsterdam last year.
One aspect of the Park & Breathe system’s features that is of particular interest to councils, which has been fed back to Parkeon, is that the environmental module is at head height (between the solar panel on top of the meter and the screen display). A large number of existing environmental monitors tend to be located much higher up on lamp-posts, so the Parkeon system has the potential to offer more realistic street level monitoring.
“We’re redefining the role of parking terminals to provide services that go way beyond conventional functionality,” said David Lloyd, Parkeon’s marketing manager.
“Our parking terminals are open platform multiservice kiosks capable of integrating with smart third party systems; and this includes supporting environmental monitoring technology. Critically, we are able to introduce such functionality for the benefit of towns and cities and their communities without the need for huge additional infrastructure investment, because the hardware network already exists.”
