Sharjah: Sharjah Municipality has launched two digital scanning vehicles to monitor public parking areas, a first of its kind in the region.
Ali Ahmad Abu Ghazien, Director of Public Parking Department at Sharjah Municipality, said each vehicle can monitor and process more than 3,000 vehicles an hour.
The vehicles are green and white, with ‘Sharjah Municipality’ decorated across it. They have mobile cameras fitted on their roofs, saving time and effort and simplifying the work of inspection teams. The vehicles are equipped with a host of special features and digital technologies.
He added that parked vehicles will be given a grace period of 10 minutes without paying the fees, the same as earlier. The scanning vehicle can read the number plates and know if the vehicle exceeded this period without paying the fees or not through a processor that stores the image and works on updating it. The update is then sent to the follow-up office in the parking department. This is followed by an alert sent to the inspector and provides him with the specific location of the vehicle and a photo of it so that the necessary action can be taken.
The digital scanning vehicles have been deployed in all areas that have touchscreen paying machines, which were installed in different parts of the emirate last week.
Help in future planning
Abu Ghazien said the digital scanning vehicles contribute to surveying all areas and knowing the percentage of parking spaces in them to conduct the necessary study to add to the number of paid parking spaces, taking into account several criteria such as the quality and nature of the area, the available infrastructure, the density of vehicles, the vitality of the sector, and the quality of the facilities.
Thabit Al Taurifi, Director General of Sharjah City Municipality, said that the digital scanning vehicles reflect the directions of the civic body in digital transformation and the use of the best means in inspecting public parking in an accurate manner, and employing modern technologies. He added that these vehicles help monitor parking abuses and provide data on parking occupancy rates, times and rates of use and various payment methods.
Khalid bin Falah Al Suwaidi, Assistant General Manager of the Customer Service Sector, explained that the launch of these vehicles coincides with the launched of more than 400 touchscreen devices to pay parking fees. He added more such vehicles will be launched, coinciding with the completion of the installation of the 1,070 touchscreen payment devices across all areas of Sharjah by the first quarter of next year.
