On March 16th, Cleverciti, Element Energy, Trojan Energy & British Parking Association co-hosted the webinar: “The road to electrification: how parking data can assist Local Authorities with electric transition and beyond.”

The speaker panel consisted of:

• Chris Heddle, Country Manager UK & Ireland at Cleverciti

• David Parker, COO at Cleverciti

• Sarah Clements, Senior Consultant at Element Energy

• Hugh Mackenzie, COO at Trojan Energy

• Julian O'Kelly, PhD, Head of Technology, Innovation and Research at the British Parking Association (BPA)

During the webinar, which was attended by 52 representatives of local authorities from the UK, Chris Heddle from Cleverciti took on the role of moderator and lead the conversation around the switch to electric vehicles in cities and how smart parking can help local authorities during the transition. After introducing all members of the speaker panel, Mr. O’Kelly was the first to kick off by directly addressing the topic at hand: the fact that the transport & mobility sector is not nearly as far advanced in terms of reducing carbon emissions as they should be, especially in these times of increased volumes of delivery services, such as Amazon. Electric Vehicles (EV) are, in the eyes of the BPA, a large part of the solution. That is why the BPA is working with the government to support a National Parking Platform; a publicly owned, national facility that enables Parking Operators (public or private) to communicate digitally with service providers, covering data like occupancy or payments & reservation information. Parking space, in the eyes of Mr. O’Kelly, should be approached in the future as mobility space. 

The next speaker, Ms. Clements from Element Energy, which is a consultancy that only works on low and zero-emission projects with local authorities (LA), gave an example of a project that they did to support LAs on their road to electrification: an analysis for the Birmingham city council to assess taxi demand to determine where charging points should be located. This is only one of the means of support that LAs can receive on their journey to electrification.

Mr. MacKenzie from Trojan Energy, the company that produces the Flat & Flush Connector, shared with the audience how their EV charging solution works. The connector is a charging point that is located a few centimeters from the edge of the curb and is hidden in the pavement. When a user accesses its personal lance, the charger rises and is ready for use. In addition to that, Trojan recently teamed up with Cleverciti, to tackle another challenge concerning on-street charging without EV-only bays: the blocking of parking spaces by non-EV vehicles. That is why they decided to install Cleverciti Sensors on lampposts along the street, that monitor every moment to see if a parking space is available. This data is used in an app for EV drivers, that shows them exactly which spaces are available in real-time, giving them a clear parking advantage over non-EV drivers.  

Last but not least, Mr. Heddle, on behalf of Cleverciti, shared how parking data can assist LAs with electrification and beyond. The parking pressure today is huge: 95% of the time a car is parked and 44 hours of time is wasted by people in search of a parking space. In addition to that, 1.3kg CO2 is emitted by parking search and 23.3 billion Pounds are lost due to parking search. As a result, 34% of the drivers will resort to negative behavior. Smart parking helps overcome this challenge, for example by applying Cleverciti’s sensor technology that monitors and stimulates compliance. By providing the Cleverciti App that can be integrated into payment or city apps, Cleverciti is aiming for maximum adoption by the local drivers, reducing traffic and emissions. 

It is safe to say that when you combine EV infrastructure with smart parking data, that is when the puzzle truly comes together. By combining both you can encourage correct use of space, incentivize EV drivers to vacate EV bays when fully charged, notify EV drivers of charging bays becoming available, etc.

Of course, this is not all that was talked about. Wish to find out more? The full recording of the event can be viewed below:

Wish to know more about smart parking and its role in the road to electrification? Schedule a demo with one of our smart parking experts by clicking the button below. 

On November 19th, 2020, Cleverciti & Itron came together during their latest webinar that was focused on the implementation of smart lampposts in smart city projects around the world. This virtual event, joined by a record number of attendees representing more than 12 countries, was moderated by Cleverciti’s very own Joe Survance, who leads the US organization. The speaker panel consisted of:

• Itai Dadon, Global Head of Smart Cities at Itron

• Thomas Hohenacker, CEO & Founder at Cleverciti

• David Parker, COO at Cleverciti

Joe Survance

Thomas Hohenacker

David Parker

Itai Dadon

Itron, an important Cleverciti partner, for the implementation of smart city projects around the world, is a global leader in the management of energy, water, and other utilities in cities. Mr. Dadon, Global Head of Smart Cities at Itron, started off by stressing how important smart cities really are for us. “They are entirely created for us, for the citizens that the cities serve. Cities are under tremendous pressure these days, and COVID is adding to that,” Mr. Dadon shared. Smart cities help to make the lives of their residents better. The challenges that cities face are global. There are 3 categories of challenges cities face:

• Environmental (lower emissions)

• Social (improve quality of life)

• Economic (increase compliance and revenue)

It is of great importance to both Itron & Cleverciti to contribute with their technologies to directly help solve these challenges. 

Next, Mr. Hohenacker brings the topic to lampposts and explains the vital role they play in smart city projects. “First of all, they are everywhere. There are over 30 million streetlights in the US alone. And they are of extraordinary importance as they ‘overlook’ very important assets.” 

Cleverciti was able to solve parking search in cities by utilizing lampposts in 2 steps:

1. Building an accurate data layer of the whole city to be able to say which spots are available and which are occupied (by using Cleverciti Sensors)

2. Creating guidance technology to bring you to the nearest available spot (by using Cleverciti Sign, Cleverciti Circ)

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: parking search is extremely costly to society. 30% of all traffic is search traffic. It is no surprise that cities these days are eager to solve this problem and lower the ‘cost’. Lampposts play a key role in solving parking issues in cities. 

Cleverciti moves on by sharing three real-life examples of implementation projects in which streetlights were key in the solution to smart parking:

• City of San Antonio (in close collaboration with Itron)

• City of Bad Hersfeld

• City of Cologne

Curious about these real-life examples and their smart parking solutions? 

Watch the full recording of the event here: 

The presentation that was shared during the event can be found here:

Lower emissions and improve quality of life while growing revenue

19 November 2020

When:

10 - 11 AM (PCT) / 7 - 8 PM (CT)

Time: 

Representatives of utility companies and cities or anyone else who is interested in the topic

Expected audience: 

English

Spoken language:

Sign up here

How to join the event:

Streetlights have extraordinary strategic importance in the development of smart cities as they ‘overlook’ essential properties of a city: on-street or surface parking spaces, delivery and drop-off zones, e-charging stations, as well as no parking zones such as fire hydrants.

Meanwhile, parking search traffic causes up to 30% of all inner-city traffic. Smart parking solutions provide the data and guidance required to help cities reduce traffic and emissions and increase parking and shopping revenue while allowing drivers to enjoy a smooth, stress-free arrival experience.

Each streetlight has a staggering ability to manage $80K-$400K in annual revenue potential for a city. How? Cleverciti’s streetlight-mounted AI sensor can typically monitor 10-50 parking spaces, whereas each parking space has an annual revenue potential of about $8,000.

For utilities, generating valuable data via existing streetlight assets opens new opportunities to generate revenue while making cities more livable by reducing traffic and emissions. Higher parking turnover and increased compliance helps local retailers to attract shoppers and grow their businesses.

In addition, with the growth of delivery vehicles, managing the curb has become a crucial challenge: avoiding double parking and monitoring dwell times of delivery vehicles in dedicated loading zones improves traffic flow and safety.

This webinar will dive deep into crucial topics for the evolution of smart cities:

• How utilities can enter the data business by leveraging their streetlight assets

• How to effectively manage the curb to make the best use of this valuable real estate while improving safety and congestion

• How to make cities more livable by reducing traffic and emissions with smart parking

Join Cleverciti, the leading smart parking solution, and Itron, the world leader in smart city solutions, delivering critical infrastructure to help utilities and cities manage energy and water” to gain insights and examples of how cities and utilities can manage their on-street assets in a highly efficient way and turn data, generated directly at each streetlight into a valuable smart city revenue driver.

We look forward to seeing you there!