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Like many cities, Sydney strives to maintain a sustainable environmental footprint. Transportation is a significant source of emissions, with cars making up about 85% of this sector in NSW[1]. Growing awareness of environmental issues is causing many local authorities to take a proactive role in contributing to a greener, lower emissions future for cities.

Place Management NSW is helping to improve environmental sustainability in Sydney by making EV charging more convenient and cost effective. As an existing trusted provider of integrated parking management solutions (ticketless payments, Park’NPay, enforcement), Place Management NSW turned to Duncan Solutions to help make The Rocks an area which is more accessible to EV motorists.

With Duncan TX Parking Machines installed throughout The Rocks, repurposing this infrastructure and giving it a new functionality made sense. Duncan Solutions has integrated EV charging equipment into a TX Parking Machine, which enables the adjacent ‘green’ parking spaces to be used by Electric Vehicles and use the charging facility whilst the vehicle is parked. Duncan Solutions has partnered with JET Charge, Australia’s leading provider of EV charging equipment and payment solutions in creating this integrated solution. The EV TX Machine features:

• 2 Type 2 charging ports which is the industry standard and can charge vehicles from all major EV companies, quickly and safely.
• Solar cells which power the parking functionality of the TX Machine with the EV charging facility supplied from the mains power supply.
• Contactless and ticketless payments including Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay, Apple Pay and the NSW Government Park’NPay app.

Trent Loebel (CEO): “We’re thrilled to have worked with Place Management NSW and JET Charge to deliver such an innovative, world leading solution to encourage the use of Electric Vehicles in The Rocks. With Duncan Solutions parking machines deployed in all major cities in Australia, we look forward to providing this capability across the country.”

With the TX Meter being ubiquitous across Australia, it is an interface which is highly familiar to the EV driving community. Drivers can now charge their vehicles in The Rocks for free when they pay for their parking. This is creating a city that is more accessible for EV motorists, all while helping to reduce carbon emissions in the city.

Place Management NSW’s Kylie Doulman: “This initiative is a great example of Place Management partnering with innovative businesses to improve sustainability in The Rocks. The Rocks is a vibrant retail heritage precinct and we are committed to its continued transformation into a sustainable place for Sydneysiders.

JET Charge CEO, Tim Washington said: “With EV ownership set to skyrocket over the coming years, having convenient places to charge your car will be vital.  Incorporating EV charging into existing streetside assets is a no brainer, as it reduces visual clutter whilst increasing amenity.  We look forward to working with Duncan Solutions on the rollouts to come”.

[1] https://climatechange.environment.nsw.gov.au/About-climate-change-in-NSW/NSW-emissions#:~:text=NSW%20annual%20emissions%20per%20capita,tonnes%20CO2%2De%20per%20capita.

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150 kilometres is a long way to go for a bank trip.

But for Parks and Wildlife WA Rangers in Cape Arid National Park, that was just part of life. Collecting entrance fees from various cash boxes in the park, holding onto the money for weeks, then making the two-hour drive to the nearest bank in Esperance to cash.

It’s a beautiful drive, but not one that should be a regular part of anyone’s job. By working with Duncan Solutions, Parks and Wildlife have managed to remove it completely. We spoke with Mike Shepherd, Regional Leader for the South Coast Region, to find out more.

Turning parking meters into pillars of efficiency

Since 2015, Duncan Solutions has provided 14 pay and display terminals to Parks and Wildlife WA, which the organisation has stationed across some dozen national parks on the South Coast.

“We call them electronic fee pillars,” says Mike. “They were traditional parking meters, but Duncan Solutions modified them with a new program to accept entrance fees for national parks.”

“They now accept PayWave, EFTPOS and credit cards – most electronic forms of payment. The terminals run on solar power, and can link into the PEMS (Parking Enterprise Management System) as long as they have a mobile signal. Even in our most remote national parks, that hasn’t really been an issue – maybe a slightly modified aerial here and there.”

All parks under Mike’s purview operate on an honour system, so ensuring as many people as possible can contribute is critical for the day-to-day maintenance of Parks and Wildlife.

“Entrance fees are $13 for a vehicle or $7 on concession – that’s what we call recreational revenue. It’s all funding that goes back into the parks through looking after pathways, maintaining infrastructure, new signage, rubbish collection and staff management.”

With the old system being physical cash boxes and written receipts where motorists put their license plate, it was certainly time for change. And as Mike points out, the impact of Duncan Solutions’ terminals has been fantastic.

One of Duncan Solutions’  new parking machines at Castle Rocks

How pay and display terminals changed WA’s national parks

By shifting to Duncan Solutions’ customised terminals, Parks and Wildlife WA saw massive benefits in terms of information gleaned and minimised labour-intensive work – particularly in remote areas.

“Our most remote rangers operate in areas like Cape Arid National Park, where it’s a two-hour journey to the nearest bank. Under the old system, they’d have to make that trip pretty regularly to deposit money, because our boxes only took cash. With the electronic terminals, there’s no need for any of that.”

“It means our staff can get on with their jobs in a much more enjoyable way. Nobody likes having to spend ages chasing money, and now rangers can focus on visitor management, looking after parks and generally making sure people enjoy their stay.”

Mike notes that in addition to making people’s jobs more enjoyable, the integration of PEMS has enhanced the kind of information they get on overall visitors.

“We already had a pretty accurate gauge of our most popular parks, but PEMS gives us a really good overview of everything that’s happening. Payment times and summaries, how much revenue each pillar generates, events notifications or alarms – it’s big-picture info right in front of us, which is great.”

Parks and Wildlife WA is a prime example of how Duncan Solutions’ technology can help with more than just parking solutions. The customisation of terminals and strong integration capabilities in PEMS mean that payment management can be addressed in a massive number of contexts.

With parks officers right across Australia in touch with Mike about where he got his terminals, it’s a solution that’s clearly catching on. To find out how our technology can help your organisation, get in touch today.

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When people think smart cities, they generally think cutting-edge technology: new sensors, new software, new parking management. But while the Duncan Solutions team is constantly innovating to find better ways of managing parking, some of our technology has actually been in use for nearly 25 years.

Case in point: the Australian Federal Police (AFP). Since 1994, the AFP has worked with Duncan Solutions to deliver ticketing and infringement notices from digital devices – one of the first bodies in Australasia to do so. For more information on this relationship and recent work with the organisation, we spoke with Duncan Solutions’ Head of Sales Marketing, Grant Dobson, and the Product Manager, Marten Cullity.

24 years of efficiency for infringement notices

In 1994, Duncan Solutions introduced the Autocite infringement system to the AFP – a precursor to the AutoISSUE system we use today. Grant explains:

“While we’ve upgraded the AFP’s systems four or five times over the years, the purpose of the software and hardware has remained the same. It’s about enabling officer to efficiently issue tickets for infringements.”

“When we started, the AFP were just using it for traffic infringements (TIN) – speeding fines, general motorist citations. They could use devices to issue tickets on the spot, something that was revolutionary at the time. Over time, we’ve expanded their capabilities, to the point where parking infringements (PIN) and even criminal infringements (CIN) are integrated.”

By equipping the AFP with cutting-edge technology and upgrading it consistently over time, Duncan Solutions have built revolutionary efficiencies into the way our largest police force functions. But with our latest upgrade, we took things even further.

How AutoISSUE works for the AFP in 2018

As Product Manager, Marten Cullity has overseen the most recent upgrade to the AFP’s systems, which went live shortly before Australia Day. Now, the organisation’s capabilities include:

• An upgrade from X3 Autocite devices to Android devices running AutoISSUE, given to more than 100 officers.
• Ticket issued to offenders via email (or post when email is unavailable).
• Warning lookups, that notify officers if an individual has made an infringement before.
• Watchlists for repeat offenders (people or vehicles).
• Full integration with the ACT’s RTA systems.

“This upgrade means that for the very first time, paper tickets will be removed from the system,” Marten notes.

“All the necessary information is captured and transferred through a PEMS environment with full reporting and analysis, including sending full tickets to people electronically. It saves work, it saves time and it saves money.

Police don’t have to go back to the station for a CIN, PIN or TIN, while offenders have a streamlined way of paying fines or dealing with proceedings. It’s a much simpler, more efficient way of doing things. The system’s ability to integrate with PEMS and Federal systems like what the RTA has means IT and operational teams don’t have to spend much time on maintenance either. Applications can receive patches and configuration updates seamlessly, and the Duncan Solutions team are on hand to quickly address any issues that might crop up.”

Building smart cities with long-lasting relationships

These upgrades are the latest in a long line of work we have done with the AFP, cementing a quarter-century relationship even further. For the future, Marten believes new upgrades could include optical character recognition for drivers’ licenses – similar to how Apple Pay works for reading credit cards.

It goes to show the flexibility and sophistication of PEMS. With a central theme of efficiency and a back-end management system that can bring back offices and frontline staff together, Duncan Solutions can create a better way of working for everyone.

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Duncan’s Parking Enterprise Management System (PEMS) has been developed specifically to provide civic entities and authorities with high level ‘dashboard’ overviews, comprehensive reporting, and in-depth analysis of their parking occupancy, availability and compliance through a hosted user interface.

A recent convert to the PEMS system is the City of Subiaco. We spoke with the City’s Commercial Parking Coordinator, Jeremy Graf.

The project: Keeping parking smart

“We used to have 70 parking payment machines – dumb machines, we used to call them,” Jeremy explains.

“They couldn’t report to a cloud-based system, they couldn’t provide statistical information, they couldn’t interact with a lot of different payment methods. We also only had machine uptime of around 70 per cent, with regular maintenance required and the processes taking hours or days.”

To address this and help Subiaco meet its goals for efficiency, better service and an improved user experience, Duncan delivered:

• The AutoISSUE infringement issuance system (on Android devices linked to Bluetooth printers).
• A cost effective upgrade of the City’s old existing Cale parking machines.
• An implementation of more new Duncan parking machines, bringing the total number in the city to 82.
• Comprehensive maintenance and customer service availability.
• A license plate recognition vehicle to monitor and analyse parking behaviour.
• A single back-end database that links and reports on all of these functionalities through the cloud.

“With Duncan Solutions’ proposal, we could just sit back and let things happen,” Jeremy adds. “They had a completely functional solution that, at the time, very few other operators could match – and the results have been fantastic.”

The results: A faster, more efficient Subiaco

Since winning the tender and upgrading the City of Subiaco’s parking management, Duncan Solutions has made tangible improvements to the way the council operates.

“Maintenance is a big one for us – while terminal uptime used to be 70 per cent, since using Duncan Solutions we’ve gone up as high as 99 per cent. They’re proactive and fast responders, and are constantly upgrading machine parts. This means that we’re fielding far fewer customer complaints and losing less money due to terminal breakdowns – we’re also spending 70 per cent of what we used to spend on fixes,” Jeremy added.

“The efficiency on payment terminal interactivity is also excellent. We’re seeing 68 per cent of parking payments in a month made using credit cards, and about 60 per cent of those through PayWave – our terminals have to be working well to meet this consumer behaviour, and Duncan Solutions have made it happen.”

This extends to faulty payments – a critical issue for customer relations.

“With older machines, any double payment or mistake had to be processed by our team manually, and it caused a lot of problems for customers. Thanks to Duncan Solutions’ upgrades, terminals communicate directly with banks and resolve such issues nearly instantaneously,” Jeremy explained.

Beyond the numbers, having a more efficient parking system also influences driver behaviour. Jeremy noted that more consistently functioning parking terminals and higher ease of use brought more drivers to City of Subiaco parking than privately-owned spaces, while the transmission of data from terminals to a database gave them a comprehensive birds-eye view of exactly where, when and why drivers were choosing to park.

“It’s a really good setup – the systems have absolutely demonstrated their worth, to the point where we’re doing future modelling with the Duncan Solutions systems automatically included. We can rely on it, and want to continue doing so for the long-term.”

By partnering with a team like Duncan Solutions, you get maximised efficiency in a whole host of areas – it’s a critical step on the journey to becoming a truly smart city. To find out how we can improve your operations, get in touch today.

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In Macau, Duncan Solutions has worked closely with the Government and the Industrial and commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to integrate two ‘smart’ payment systems into the  700 VX parking payment terminals across the region – the local MacauPass card, and UnionPay, the most widely-used credit card in China.

World-first certification in parking payment implementation

Duncan Solutions partnered with ICBC to scope, develop, integrate and test UnionPay credit card transactions on our parking machines. The complex certification process was completed late last year, and drivers in Macau can now pay for parking using their UnionPay QuickPass cards (tap and go) on any Duncan meter.

In Macau, Duncan Solutions have helped implement the equivalent of Paywave in parking terminals.

Expansion of parking management services across Macau

The initial installation of 700 VX parking machines across Macau proved to be a success, integrating seamlessly with the MacauPass system and enhancing accessibility right across the region. Following a strong take-up of MacauPass payments on these, we began work installing a further 500, and all of these machines with transact using UnionPay ‘QuickPass’ cards now” stated Trent Loebel, Duncan’s Chief Executive Officer.

Trent adds “The Duncan team have also helped the Government of Macau (who maintain responsibility for managing parking and compliance across the region) implement ‘AutoISSUE’. This digital infringement issuance application system integrates with the meters and our Parking Enterprise Management System (PEMS) to identify vehicles whose drivers have not paid, introducing considerable efficiencies to the enforcement process and improving compliance and turnover.”

The advent of contactless payments allows people to exist without the need for cash.

Bringing together smart city technology with one system – PEMS

These ‘smart city initiatives’ would not be possible without a comprehensive back-end management system. Duncan Solutions’ PEMS platform facilitates the connection between card providers and the parking system, and between individual bays and the compliance teams. “PEMS was the cornerstone to achieving certification for UnionPay within our system, and is crucial in synthesising each parking and compliance application with the rest of Macau’s smart civic network to improve the driver experience”, says Trent. “This is what a smart city is all about. Meshing technologies to improve how people work, travel, purchase – the way they live.”

“At Duncan Solutions, we’re proud to be a part of that progress. As Visa’s Chris Hughes said in our 2017 interview with him, contactless payments are one of the fundamentals of a smart city – the market penetration and breadth of service you get with PayWave is one of the most tangible hallmarks of the new wave of smart cities. Building networks with technology like UnionPay means more people can travel to places like Macau without having to change the way they spend – in a sense, it’s the globalisation of currency.”

To find out more about how Duncan Solutions’ technology can help you city meet its potential, get in touch with our team today.

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A fundamental component of the strategy involves ensuring their enforcement team can effectively manage parking in the field.

As Local Laws Manager Phil Amson explained, that meant finding the right technology.

“We wanted to return to a superior model”

Noosa Shire Council and Duncan Solutions had worked together years earlier, and Phil says he loved the technology when he was first introduced to it. When the time came to refresh their parking strategy, Duncan Solutions was his first port of call.

“We needed fantastic tech and hardware to support our parking enforcement – mobile devices, bluetooth printers, not to mention the ability to feed all the data back to the council in real time and analyse it from a centralised database.”

“Over time, we realised we weren’t getting that with our previous provider – but Duncan Solutions were able to step in. They gave us increased speed, better flexibility and mobility, and delivered a fully functioning, high-tech set of products to help our parking teams.”

“We wanted to return to a superior model, like we had with Duncan initially. We ended up with a far better, far more polished final product than we had ever worked with before.”

Noosa Shire Council have revolutionised their operations with the AutoISSUE application.

How AUTOIssue changed Noosa’s parking management

The implementation of smart technology for Noosa’s parking teams paid real dividends, Phil adds.

“In terms of business outcomes, it’s been all positives. Not just on the ground either – while compliance teams definitely have an easier time of it using the AutoISSUE application in the field, the admin side of things has been amazing as well.”

“With this system, you get all of your parking data in one central space. Storing images, data, audio and video – not a problem. That kind of information can take up a lot of space, and it can really hamper the IT unit. Duncan Solutions’ system is totally self-sufficient, which takes all of that work off our hands.”

This expands beyond parking itself. Noosa Shire Council has been able to use AutoISSUE to assist with animal control and general local law infringements like residential boundary problems as well. By establishing a coherent, top-tier system for recording, transmitting and storing infringement data, Noosa has been able to make massive strides in improving its internal efficiencies.

Faster data entry means more efficiencies.

Faster data entry means more efficiencies.

Find a tech partner who works for your needs

Establishing a system like AutoISSUE can be complex – you have to be certain you’re partnering with someone who can cater to your needs. In Duncan Solutions, Phil believes Noosa Shire Council has found the ideal team to work with.

“The working relationship with Duncan has been a pleasure. We’ve never had to wait long for a response to queries, we’re thrilled with the service and product, and they jump on issues as quickly as possible. Doesn’t hurt that they’re nice people to boot!”

From the beach to the bus station, Noosa’s compliance teams can capture everything they need with the click of a button. It’s the kind of efficiency that more and more councils across Australia are adopting. Smart technology is the future of our cities, and many journeys have begun with parking.

To find out more about how parking management technology can help your operational efficiency, contact the team at Duncan Solutions.

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Issuing handwritten parking tickets is an inefficient way to issue penalties. The future is automated, and Duncan Solutions’ AutoISSUE system enables local councils and private operators to record data quickly, accurately and report on it via an integrated central database.

It’s a simpler, more effective way of managing parking compliance than relying on a paper system, which can lead to errors. For more information on the benefits of automating compliance, we spoke to Jamie Tann, Manager of Health and Public Safety at Mount Barker District Council.

Efficient expiation through AutoISSUE

“We had been working with a paper system for parking compliance for a long time,” Jamie explains. “But it becomes frustrating and inefficient. You occasionally get mistakes like wrong addresses or street numbers on expiation notices, and a paper-based expiations made customer service slow – which is the last thing people need when they’re dealing with a parking ticket.”

After consultation with Duncan Solutions, Mount Barker decided to use the AutoISSUE system for their parking compliance. This included:

• Providing the parking staff with Android devices to record data.
• Equipping them with lightweight portable Bluetooth printers to issue tickets.
• Establishing a comprehensive back end management system for the storage and reporting on all their parking infringement data.

By automating many of the parking compliance processes at Mount Barker, officers (and the wider council) have seen some fantastic benefits.

AutoIssue offers a large variety of modules to facilitate officers’ and rangers’ daily work.

“AutoISSUE gives us much greater efficiency, much better time management and it gives us a lot of consistency with our expiation process,” Jamie adds. “Drivers get all the information they need quickly and clearly, while our team don’t have to double-handle data or manually put it into our database.”

     

The data is already pre-populated to save your teams time.

“It’s also been excellent for our customer service. If people have queries about infringements, we can always quickly come back to them with the information they need. In a paper-based system, we just couldn’t guarantee that level of service.”

Save all the evidence you need on your phone.

Since installation four or five months ago, Jamie believes it has been an extraordinary success – and the first step on a much larger journey of implementing smart technology at a local government level.

Building smart technology for better working relationships

At first, Jamie noted there was some resistance within the council to digital expiation implementation.

“While paper systems were frustrating, there was some push-back on trying something new. People are often used to doing things a certain way, but now that it’s been in operation for a few months everyone is absolutely on board with AutoISSUE.”

“Duncan Solutions have been a big part of that. We had an extensive, in-depth dialogue in the build-up to implementation where they showed us exactly what we could do to improve our systems, and the benefits that would bring.”

“Our team had a lot of questions about how it worked and what kind of improvements we could make, and Duncan were on hand to answer each and every one. They ticked all of the boxes from the outset and had a great, cost-effective plan for us – it was a bit of a no-brainer to work with them.”

As one of the fastest-growing parts of South Australia, Mount Barker District Council knew they needed to improve their systems to keep pace – and while AutoISSUE has been a big improvement for them, Jamie believes there is plenty more to come.

“We’re still bedding down the systems, and this is the first step in implementing mobile tech for our parking. But once everything is settled, we’ll absolutely be looking at what else we can do to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. I think this has been the start of a pretty good relationship.”

AutoISSUE is just one of many ways that councils and operators can automate their parking to make things easier for both consumers and compliance. For more information on how we can help, contact the Duncan Solutions team.

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For many, many years, the chalking of tyres has been the only method with which to monitor parking overstay activity. But this exhausting process of marking and then revisiting the car to check the tyre(s) a second time is physically demanding, extremely time-consuming, and can be easily ‘gamed’ by drivers wishing to avoid an infringement.

Penrith City Council were keen to trial a technology that could digitise this process, and asked Duncan Solutions to provide a more effective parking management solution.

A Vehicle Detection Sensor trial to prove effectiveness

“In 2015, management agreed to trial a new vehicle detection system in our Edwards Place parking area,” explains Noel Fuller, Ranger and Animal Services Coordinator at Penrith City Council. “Over two days, the Duncan team installed a sensor into each of the 82 spaces within the car park. Once live, the sensors began to monitor every vehicle that entered and exited the zone.”

Duncan Solutions has worked with Penrith before, engaging in X3 system trials in 2011 and providing ongoing support for infringements in the parking sphere.

“Our enforcement teams were equipped with Android smartphones, and were able to see the overstay status of each vehicle within the AutoISSUE infringement issuance application. Officers could remotely monitor when a car parked, and how long it then remained in place.”

This allowed Council to test the accuracy and latency of the sensors in the field, and ensure that the data was correct, and being displayed on the officer’s smartphone device within seconds of a vehicle arriving/departing.

Data capture and analysis

Though Council chose not to enforce against the sensor data during the initial three month trial period, each and every potential infringement opportunity for non-compliant vehicles was recorded by the system from the first day of the trial, and could be reviewed by Council administrators and management in PEMS (Duncan’s ‘Parking Enterprise Management System’) at any time.

Penrith Council collated an unprecedented volume of rich parking data over the course of three months, as Noel explains.

“We tracked all parking events in the trial zone during business hours, and could analyse vehicle turnover figures, average occupancy rates, and potential overstay events.” And for the first time ever, Council could determine an exact non-compliance rate, and it was high.

This level of insight was startling for Council’s compliance team. But it was revolutionary for their traffic engineers, who were suddenly able to access detailed parking occupancy data at the touch of a button. Prior to the vehicle sensors, this sort of information could only be obtained by hiring a third party consultancy firm, who would typically contract students to record vehicle movements on clipboards and present a report after several months of preparation.

A decision was soon made to make the vehicle sensors a permanent fixture in the Edwards Place car park, and Council gave the go ahead to begin writing infringements based on the sensor data captured.

Simple Expansion of Intelligent Parking technology

The trial of vehicle detection sensors and PEMS has helped the compliance team to change driver behavior in the Edwards Place car park. Non-compliant parking has fallen since the implementation of the sensors, and Council will soon issue a public tender for the installation of more sensors across the Penrith CBD.

“Everything worked really well, and we hope to keep going. Duncan’s specialists can remotely access the sensors through PEMS, which means any issues can be solved quickly – we don’t have to wait for someone to come on-site,” Noel noted.

Duncan Solutions’ PEMS provides the backbone upon which further ‘integrated parking’ technology can be delivered. Should Council wish to add meters, pay by phone, digital signage, or fixed and mobile LPR cameras to help manage their parking, PEMS’ open platform architecture makes it easy.

If you are interested in improving compliance management in your jurisdiction, contact Duncan Solutions today.

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