Munich chooses Siemens for parking-space management

Under a comprehensive parking-space management scheme, the city of Munich is installing parking ticket machines in public areas. Siemens Mobility has been awarded a contract to supply its Sitraffic Sicuro models. As well as standard operation, a number of customer-specific functions have also been included in the pay and display machines. Payment can be made not only with coins or electronic purses, but also with the Munich ParkCard. An automatic barcode printout system has also been integrated specially for the Bavarian capital, so that accounts can be recorded and verified quickly and easily whenever the cash cassettes are changed.

About Siemens Industry

The Siemens Industry Sector (Erlangen, Germany) is the worldwide leading supplier of production, transportation, building and lighting technologies. With integrated automation technologies as well as comprehensive industry-specific solutions, Siemens increases the productivity, efficiency and flexibility of its customers in the fields of industry and infrastructure. The Sector consists of six Divisions: Building Technologies, Drive Technologies, Industry Automation, Industry Solutions, Mobility and Osram. With around 222,000 employees worldwide Siemens Industry posted a profit of EUR3.86 billion with revenues totalling EUR38 billion in fiscal year 2008 (ended September 30).

About Siemens Mobility

The Mobility Division (Erlangen, Germany) is the internationally leading provider of transportation and logistics solutions. With its "Complete mobility" approach, the Division is focused on networking the various modes of transportation in order to ensure the efficient transport of people and goods. Complete mobility combines the company's competence in operations control systems for railways and traffic control systems for roadways together with solutions for airport logistics, postal automation, traction power supplies and rolling stock for mass transit, regional and mainline services, turnkey systems as well as forward-looking service concepts.

The standard scope of supply includes data transmission using the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) mobile communications standard. This permits device settings to be modified in real time and transaction data such as electronic cash payments to be processed around the clock in remote mode. Online ticket layout modification and the automatic startup of different parking zones directly from the control center are greatly simplifying operational procedures for the city of Munich. Showing the parking rate in a separate display means that printed tariff information do not have to be changed manually, a great benefit for the city of Munich compared to conventional machines. Moreover, it is no longer necessary to activate the parking ticket machines on site as they are gradually triggered for use after installation by remote control according to a schedule. Unlike the devices supplied previously, the new parking ticket machines are solar-powered. This not only cuts energy costs, but also avoids the need to install power connections.

Siemens won the order not only because of its innovative technology, but also thanks to the low operating costs for services such as rapid modification using flexible data storage systems and the digital display of tariff information. Siemens Mobility is supplying 717 Sitraffic Sicuro parking ticket machines to the City of Munich.