HSL (Helsingin Seudun Liikenne) is a public transport operator in the Helsinki metropolitan region and once you have a valid ticket to travel with HSL public transportation, you can park free or for a small fee in their Park & Ride facilities. Whilst HSL is responsible for the daily operations of P & R areas, Metropolitan Area Transport Ltd (Pääkaupunkiseudun Kaupunki Liikenne Oy) is responsible for all infrastructure investments and customer experience development in the locations.
HSL serves its customers with a Journey Planner application which the user can take advantage of when planning one’s journey to Helsinki city center for example. In Journey Planner you can search for Park & Ride sites and site-specific information such as the number of vacant car parking spaces. Number of available spaces has not been available from all sites, but HSL has started to implement Portier Vision Outdoor Cameras which will provide accurate and real-time space availability information. Space availability can be shown on the local guidance displays but the information is also transferred from our Portier HOST™ parking guidance platform to the Journey Planner of HSL which makes it visible for all travelers.
Lately, Portier has installed VISION outdoor cameras at a Park & Ride location in Huopalahti, Helsinki. VISION cameras are installed so that the complete parking area is being monitored by them to produce data about the parking capacity of the location.
Accurate space availability information helps travelers to plan their journeys more effectively and improves the customer experience. Overall, this makes public transportation more lucrative which supports the development of metropolitan region and reduces CO2 emissions.
Generally, effective calculation and guidance for outdoor parking areas remain one of the biggest challenges in parking and parking guidance. Over the years various solutions ranging from simple induction loop counting to individual ground sensors have been used but the most recent developments in camera technology and advanced image analysis have made it possible to utilize cameras for counting and guidance in outdoor parking areas. Main benefits of the camera solution compared to for example loop counting is the ease of operation – camera-based calculation does not need to be periodically calibrated which significantly reduces operational workload and improves the overall accuracy and reliability.
VISION outdoor cameras monitor defined areas and based on proprietary image analysis, they detect the number of vehicles and calculate the number of vacant spaces. Space availability can be shown for example in the Portier parking guidance displays, Portier Wayfinder web application or in a third-party application such as the Journey Planner of HSL. VISION outdoor camera algorithms are proprietary development by Portier, and our varying development environment offers unique conditions ranging from midnight sun to polar night and areas flooded with sunshine, rain, slush or snow. Such a diversity has made the outdoor solution suitable for different conditions globally.
Another great example of Portier’s range of technologies as well as flexibility of the Portier HOST platform which offers limitless opportunities to combine data and services with third party solutions.