Parking systems for almost all purposes

GREEN Center is the largest Czech manufacturer, supplier and seller of parking systems and automatic barriers.

It also offers a camera system for recognizing registration plates, a system for guiding one to free parking spaces and other technologies. It provides customers with comprehensive services and can respond flexibly to their special requirements. The Director of the company, Tomáš Zdobnický, answered our questions.

Green Center belongs to the top in the field. Do you have an overview of all the places where your parking systems can be found?

In total, we have over 1,200 installations of which about one hundred were installed in the last year. Most of them are in the Czech Republic, followed by Poland, Romania, Croatia, Greece, Slovakia or Israel, etc. Our clientele is a cross-section of the entire B2B market – it can therefore be hospitals, shopping centres, hotels, administrative centres, airports, etc.

Which of your products do you consider to be the ‘top’ in terms of technology?

Our flagship is the Variant parking system – it enables a wide range of solutions and covers the needs of customers throughout all the aforementioned segments. In the future, however, we see the greatest potential for the PGS system, which will fulfil the functions of a navigation, parking and reservation system at the same time – it will basically allow to approach each location as the entire carpark. Worth mentioning are also new products such as kiosks and turnstiles for collecting fees.

Are there differences in the parking systems for shopping centres and let’s say for hotels? What do they consist in?

What is important is the purpose for which the customer acquires the system – its functions must be adapted to this (parking fee collection, traffic regulation, parking space reservation, etc.). The fundamental difference in this case is that the driver usually parks in the shopping centre at a one-time basis. So, the whole parking process starts with the entrance and ends with the exit. In the case of a hotel, on the other hand, the driver usually parks there repeatedly – for the duration of the stay and thus we have to allow him repeated entry and exit. That means that the parking process is not completed until he is logged out of the system and his last exit.

What are the biggest challenges when designing atypical custom-made parking systems?

The most difficult thing is to connect various customer requirements with regard to overlapping types of operations. For instance, in the case of multi-functional buildings, administration, housing, culture and business can all overlap – and each operation has its own specifics…

What is the ‘most complex’ system you have prepared?

The thing is as to how to define a ‘complex system’. Whether as a large project with many entrances and exits, or as a smaller system with many specific requirements (for instance, as in the previous answer). As for the recent installations, I can, for instance, clearly highlight a large system in Poland – Malta Office Park, which represents a combination of business and administration. As for the Czech Republic, the one that ‘stands out’ above the others is Galerie Harfa with its own loyalty programme. In Slovakia, I would highlight the Digital Park administrative complex and the reservation system for ESET employees.

What does the complexity consist in?

As I have stated in the answer regarding atypical systems – it is primarily a question of matching the needs of the customer with the requirements of different types of operations.

What direction do you think the development of parking systems will take and what role will artificial intelligence play there?

The future is clearly moving in the direction of connecting various services into one complex system. It can be about urban mobility, electric car charging, space reservations or other services, such as delivery of a parcel to a parked car. Artificial intelligence can already be used primarily in predicting occupancy in connection with dynamic pricing and image recognition for vehicle detection.