Peter Park Promotes Efficient Parking Space Management For Lift Co’s

Fully loaded with winter sports equipment, skiers, snowboarders and tourers often drive to ski areas by car. Even if there is a connection by public transport, traveling with your own car is more convenient and is therefore preferred. The need for parking spaces at cable cars is correspondingly great. This means that mountain railway operators face several challenges, as the number of parking spaces is limited and not all those parked are also cable car customers. The operators of the Söllereckbahn in Oberstdorf and the Hörnerbahn in Bolsterlang therefore manage and control their parking spaces with a digital, barrier-free parking space management system.

Until a few years ago, most parking spaces at mountain railways in the Alpine region were available to all visitors free of charge. As a result, parkers used the parking spaces regardless of whether they took the cable car or not. The operators risked that visitors who wanted to use the cable car would not find a parking space and would leave again because the parking spaces were occupied by external parkers. As a result, the mountain railways could lose sales.

Many cable car operators now manage and control their parking areas. In this way, you also ensure that everyone parking makes a financial contribution to the maintenance of the parking areas, not just the guests of the cable car.

However, management brings its own challenges. It's particularly busy in winter and there are peak times in the morning when the lifts open and in the evening when they close. The parking management solution used must therefore be extremely weatherproof so that it works reliably in the winter season and does not fail, which would result in a loss of sales. It also has to save space so that the winter service can access the parking area. In addition, the solution must not cause traffic jams at peak times, as is the case with barrier systems when you stop, take a ticket and wait for the barrier to open. Payment transactions must be processed quickly via the machines so that no queues form.

Save costs and resources with a smart, digital solution

Against this background, the operators of the mountain railways at Söllereck and Bolsterlang have decided to manage their parking areas using the digital system from Peter Park System GmbH. It works without barriers, which means that vehicles can enter and leave the parking areas without stopping, even at peak times. This not only prevents backlogs, but also provides the winter service with barrier-free access to the parking areas.

The system uses cameras that scan the license plates of the cars at the entrance and exit in accordance with data protection regulations, from which the system calculates the length of stay and enables the parking fee to be billed to the minute. Payment is made at user-friendly pay stations with touchscreens and simple menu navigation or via parking apps. Mountain railway operators can also offer discounted parking conditions for their guests using the machines and apps, as the system has interfaces to the largest lift ticket providers and can read ski tickets, for example.

The digital system solution requires hardly any hardware in the parking areas, which means it can be installed quickly and is inexpensive to purchase and operate. Because there are no wearing parts, it also conserves resources and is less prone to repairs - which also saves costs.

The Peter Park system is a smart Internet of Things solution that is based on a modular, expandable platform. This means that mountain railway operators who have several parking areas can gradually convert them. This is what the Hörnerbahn in Bolsterlang did, for example: “The barrier-free parking system in the parking lot of our summer railway was very well received by our guests. Peter Park's system offers a customer-friendly and convenient parking experience for visitors to our railway, without traffic jams in front of the barrier or queues at the user-friendly machines. Not only do we offer our guests a smooth parking process, the holistic system has also more than paid off from a purely economic perspective. For this reason, we never doubted for a moment that we would equip the parking area of ​​our winter railway with the digital system from Peter Park before the start of the winter season," reports Martin Fahr, Managing Director of Hörnerbahn GmbH & Co. KG.

Hörnerbahn Bolsterlang: From the passenger car park to the mountain railway car park

The Hörnerbahn in Bolsterlang is close to the access road to several ski areas in Austria. Holidaymakers therefore used the mountain railway car park as a free passenger parking space on the way to their holidays, parked their cars there for several days and continued their journey together in one vehicle. Not only did these parkers take up parking spaces that were not available for paying mountain railway guests, they also did not make any financial contribution to the maintenance of the parking area. Therefore, the Hörnerbahn in Bolsterlang initially decided to manage the parking lot at the Sommerbahn using Peter Park's digital parking management system. After the solution had proven itself, the operators also rolled it out on the winter track. Although the cable car offers very favorable parking conditions, the parking lot is now self-supporting. At the same time, it is becoming less attractive for third-party parkers, so the parking spaces are now available for cable car guests.

Söllereckbahn: Mountain railway customers can park at special rates

The Oberstdorf Kleinwalsertal Bergbahnen were looking for a new parking space management system for their parking area at the Söllereckbahn. The solution should be space-saving and be able to process parking processes, including payment, with high frequency. The operator opted for the barrier-free solution from Peter Park. The cameras at the entrances and exits hardly take up any space and the scanning processes do not stop the flow of traffic. The modern, intuitive pay stations ensure a quick payment process - alternatively, parkers can also pay via the Parkster app. The Oberstdorf Kleinwalstertal Bergbahnen offer discounts for mountain railway guests using both payment methods.

Henrik Volpert, board member of OBERSTDORF • KLEINWALSERTAL BERGBAHNEN, adds: “In addition, it is great for us as operators that Peter Park offers complete parking management as a service, so that we get everything for parking space management from a single source. Because we are, above all, a mountain railway and therefore a leisure provider and not a parking space specialist. After three months, the system is the right choice for us and, in my opinion, is fundamentally very suitable for the mountain railway industry.”

Conclusion:

A digital, barrier-free parking space management system is particularly suitable for parking areas at mountain railways because it solves the special challenges there. Parkers save time and do not need a parking ticket that can get lost. Operators receive a robust solution that is ready for use quickly and saves effort.

Ski area operators can calculate the savings potential of their parking spaces online >>>>