What Future for Smart Street Parking in Transforming Cities?

We're at the Current Insight Studio at the Smart City Expo. I'm joined by Lena Acker who is from Mercedes -Benz Urban Mobility Solutions and Rita Sousa, Director of the Transport Authority at the city of Cascais in Portugal. As authorities are turning their cities into greener, calmer places. for residents we've been seeing especially in Europe many cities closing off their centers to traffic turning them into pedestrian areas and so this does lead to a question how will on -street parking investment be impacted and more particularly investments related to smart street parking solutions so Rita would you want to start right just goes believe that eliminated cars in the centers bring the cities from citizens and it's more pleasures to living in that areas so but to retired cars of the cities we have to give alternative from from people so in Cascais we had a new network transport public transport that will increase the woods and the frankies for the people so that's it that was a big investment for the city but i think it's the the base to remove the car so we have a lot of solutions to technology by the park streets or park places but we have the basic you have to have alternatives from the the peoples that's why cascais right now now is is working give alternatives and then we want to remove the cars from from the census because we believe the city is for citizens we want today people go for one day and stay for a life in in cascari so we have to to give them a big opportunities and facilities from living there lena how do you think investment will be impacted i think maybe quickly i'll to introduce a little bit what we are doing at Urban Mobility Solutions before I answer your question. In general we are like a small and very motivated department at Mercedes -Benz where we want to get into dialogue with cities, with city representatives for more safer, more sustainable and more efficient cities. That's why we also believe a lot in public-private partnerships, having a lot of dialogue and also like myself I'm leading the topic of parking analytics and when it comes to parking, in cities i think we see various trends and as long as we still have some kind of mobility need and there will also be a need for innovations around parking and that's like one part where we want to contribute to get transparency and then to optimize and i think overall innovations need investments and innovations can also be like a big lever or a big part to get into a solution to solve challenges that we currently have and also what you said always taking the citizens perspective into account because these are the people living in the cities and the city's citizens needs kind of that they want to fulfill. Rita this has already impacted the city of Qashqai's investment policy related to parking but in what sense has has it impacted? You have an app that all residents now use. Yes, we have an app, we have the public transport, the stations, the parking and other facilities in one app, but we already have sensors in the streets parking that we can see where we are going to park, we have the big park. parks, not only the parks but the big ones, we have sensors that inform the residents where they are going to park and where they have space to park. Right now we are going to start in this area in the parking way. Smart street parking is normally costly because it involves sensors and cameras at least the way we've seen it up until now so do you think that cities are going to continue to invest in those kinds of technologies or what solutions should cities focus on I think cities are going to invest in that solutions but they they have to see what cities they are working because the same solution is not from all the cities cities are different peoples are different so we have to adapt the solutions from the for the cities so I think we it's a long way we have to go but the investments go away and we don't know the future reserve but it's the way we have to go now we are see we are project the cities from the cities and other times it's for the cars it's from the roads but right now we care about people but I think these investments go but we have to see how is our cities and the needs from our citizens it's not for everything the same sensors there like Germany the people of Germany is different from Portuguese so we have to adapt adapt the same solution from different cities I think that's the way. With connected cars data collected from each vehicle can be used for different applications like traffic information, road condition monitoring but also parking guidance in certain cases so Lena you mentioned something about this but can you tell us how we could use the data collected from vehicles to optimize parking? Yeah, sure. So in general, what we do is we use the data that our vehicles are gathering. But of course, when it comes to data, very important, first of all, to mention that data privacy in this context is key. So when we talk about using data of our vehicles, we only do that as soon as the customers gave us the explicit consent that we are able to use anonymized data. So we don't use any personalized data. So when it comes to using vehicle data. we really take a very big view on the topic of data privacy and what we then use is that for example that's also the approach we generally take and within mobility solutions which assets do we have in our company that we can use and utilize and give a second purpose to different cities and in the context of parking this means that we have parking data available so where is the vehicle parking we also have like ultrasonic sensors that scan the side of the road and can see where free parking is available and with this data we can kind of reuse the assets that we have in our company and tell the city for example when it comes to transparency how much on-street parking is available in the city because this is some kind of information that some cities you said cities are different so I totally agree some cities and don't know how many parking spaces they have in different quarters and that's like I think the important first step transparency And then the second step would be to optimize, to see like how can you, for example, determine where you have at which time parking pressure points. And what we are very pushing is we call it circular data flow, that we also loop it back from the city to the vehicles. So we have kind of the vehicles that send data, we analyze this data, we provide this to cities. And we also have like information, we call that city to car notification, that we kind of loop it back to. make it possible to loop it back to our drivers and I think with this digital solutions we can be a very good add -on in the city and to using what we have which also makes it very sustainable because we don't need to drive extra to the streets so we use what we already have here so rather than having a solution just on this it's on the street you are combining street with the vehicle so a vehicle communicating with with with the city really yeah that's also what we're pushing when we talk about this partnerships with different cities yeah great could you give us an example of a city where you've deployed your parking solution so maybe quickly like general what we what we do parking of course not the only thing we do we develop also road safety product product in context of traffic safety we did together with Transport for London. We are also working together with the Ministry of Transport in the Netherlands when it comes to infrastructure. We have potholes, how is the lane marking quality and that's like always our approach that we say like also in different aspects in our young history so to say to work with different cities. When it comes to parking unfortunately I'm not able to announce the project partner yet so stay tuned for the next weeks to come up. But what we of course did is, since we developed this project, to be in constant discussion. So we pretty early started. It's not like that we kind of developed a solution and then after a year or so we threw it out to the market or to the cities. So we started very early in the beginning already to talk to different cities in Germany, in Europe, all over Europe also, in the States, to see how can we also adapt, modify the thoughts we have. really fit the city needs because in the end of course that's also where it then needs to go. You were mentioning data and I think this is related to both mobility and what you're talking about and what you're talking about. When it comes to data we always think privacy. What about drivers privacy or what about citizens privacy? How important is this for cities and how Can we protect citizen privacy, if you want to start, Rita? The data is very important for the cities because it was with data we can project and get better the cities from the cities. Without that you just do and we don't know how the impact is and if that is the solution from the problem. So the data is very important today and smart cities give us... a big data from cities, Cascais already have a big data of mobility, trash, a lot of things. So the privacy from cities are already, well, we can't keep in a, how can I say that, we provide the privacy from the people and they don't have our regulation. that provide their privacy so that's it's going well in Cascais they don't have problems at all the future I don't know but right now it's working well but it's very important that from from cities and this parking it's already a factor that we improve and see where we need to more parking streets or in the not in the streets so we have to work a lot and use the date because we have a lot of the date and we don't use them perfectly so this is the the next step is what are we doing with the data we have because we have a lot of them smart cities bring us to work for this solution data is obviously key so how do you protect privacy yeah as already mentioned and I think it's also kind of like a two-step approach so first of all protecting the data privacy of our drivers of the people where we are like they're also very happy when they share the data with us also to contribute to better infrastructure to contribute to more efficient cities There we make sure that we are in very close alignment with our data protection team also internally that always have like the legal perspective also and we are totally committed also to go beyond the GDPR standards because in the end it also comes down to trust and we also want our customers and our drivers to trust in us as a company that we handle the data appropriately. So that's why we really make sure to only use it. anonymized data and only if the customer permitted us to do so but as a second step of course the outcome then the data inside that are generated for example when it's the parking space register where you have on-street parking there we are and some cases also in close alignment with cities to see how can we then in the end also make use for other city partners of the data that was then the outcome yeah but in the first step protecting the data privacy is really of course top priority and we have a city and a private company so in the deployment of smart solutions in a city we always require cooperation but when using citizen or driver data it also involves the citizen so how do we include them in the decision making we have a big participation in Cascais with the city citizens, then they improve solutions from their neighbors and for their needs. So in Cascais we include citizens in that way. So it's not from the smart cities, it's from the Orçamento Participativo we had a few years So that's the way Cascais use to bring the citizens from decisions. For us, for example, we are always eager to engage on that end with citizens. We had a project which was called Code the Streets, also EIT funded, where we in Amsterdam and Helsinki collaborated with the city, but also with the citizens to see how certain notifications that we send to drivers can kind of nudge their behaviour when moving through the city, and also, of course, in the end, an evaluation of the results. also something where we take a look either in research projects how can we involve a different perspective to in the end also get the best solutions so this is through different projects really an approach we're trying also to foster thank you so much for answering all the questions there anything else you'd like to add about the topic or maybe a quick remark or just because we mentioned it in the beginning and when talking about sensors and I think that's also I think very important in the city that there's not only a partnership between maybe two parties but also like to think it like on a broader broader picture so for example we also partner with camera sensor providers in different cities because I think there are also context-based solutions so there's context-based mobility but also context-based solutions and that's why we also believe in to be very complementary and solution open-minded so to say to really that's also like referring to a last question focusing on the citizen not thinking exclusively but also like thinking like who should be also or who should have a part at the seat at the table and i think for this i'm very curious how the topic will develop in the future and thanks for the invitation yeah great i'm very curious to see as well what happens next what the future has in store for us and that's it for this panel thank you so much You