French smart parking firm Parkki is deploying thousands of LoRaWan sensors to help retail sites manage customer parking. It is using Actility’s ThingPark Enterprise platform to determine the number of places left and give motorists directions.

The number of parking spaces in a supermarket usually varies between 700 and 3000. Parkki has already deployed 6000 smart parking sensors. For example, at the Super U supermarket in Saint Jean de Monts in France, Parkki is installing four outdoor gateways and 400 Bosch smart parking sensors connected to LoRaWan. Another deployment is planned on the Reunion Island with 700 sensors.

Parkki claims to be the first multi-technology intelligent and connected parking platform on the market. It is a turnkey offering that connects all parking spaces, supervises them in real time and redistributes information to users.

For all car park managers and motorists, it is a reference tool to improve the parking experience. It is compatible with all smart-parking devices such as barriers, radar sensors on lighting, video analysis and ground sensors. The supervision product allows:

• Real-time knowledge of free parking spaces;
• Data streaming to control parking spaces;
• Continuous improvement adapted to user behaviour; and
• Driver guidance.

Already present in many retail chains, Parkki has been serving for several years ways to establish a link between the outdoors activity and the commercial activity of the retail centres.

The platform can be interfaced with all sensor technologies and can thus group together the strategic mobility services required by retail parks.

Specific use cases require wifi, 4G and Zigbee communication technologies, but LoRaWan in particularly is an efficient way to communicate data for sensors installed on the ground.

Using smart parking sensors with LoRaWan and connected control systems allows drivers to find free parking spots, avoid congestion, and reduce fuel consumption and pollution. And this IoT method can be implemented with a fast infrastructure setup without transforming the entire area into a construction site.

LoRa-enabled parking sensors can be deployed throughout urban areas, enabling parking operators to capture and analyse occupancy data in real time. Connected road signs and online applications can display information about available parking spots. Actility provides the IoT connectivity platform for cities, and public and private parking operators.

LoRaWan is a wireless protocol that allows battery-operated devices to communicate with IoT applications via long-range, wireless connections, allowing longer battery life, thus lowering the cost of device ownership. It especially useful in large-scale deployments because of its availability, cost and reach, due to its use of unlicensed spectrum and the availability of standardised, low-cost modules with long battery life.

French firm Actility provides the LoRaWan server and the ThingPark IoT platform for network management.

Created in 2016, Parkki specialises in mobility, parking and flow data enhancement.