Sibiu parkings and access control

Mission
The city of Sibiu is one of the most visited locations in Romania. In fact it is the third most appreciated town in this country, considering the number of tourists each year, only after the capital and Brasov County, famous for its ski slopes.

In 2007, Sibiu was the European Capital of Culture (together with Luxembourg). This was the most important cultural event that has ever happened in the city, and a great number of tourists came, both domestic and foreign. After that everything changed and the number of tourists is getting bigger each year.

Its historic center has begun the process for becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Sibiu and its surrounding area have many significant museums, with 12 institutions housing art collections, paintings, and exhibits in decorative arts, archeology, anthropology, history, industrial archeology and history of technology and natural sciences.

Throughout the year numerous festivals, concerts, artistic events are held here, which has a Central square car free and many other streets are one way.

More than 50 paid parkings are located in the city center and more others in the residential neighborhood. Some of the central ones are paid on-street parking, others are off street, while others have a limited two hour time.

Also, Sibiu is one of the first cities in Romania which introduced CCTV cams, that also can be watched live on the internet and also for monitoring the activity within the city's walls.

In fact "the wall" is a tourist attraction as we are talking about the fortifications of Sibiu which made the city one of the most important fortified cities in Central Europe.

On one hand Sibiu City Hall has a administration that wants to build a smart city and the Urban Development Plan is pursuing exactly that.

Besides being a tourist city, Sibiu is also a transit city on the route of the highway to the west of the country. This is another problem for the city, along the limited number of parking spaces.

Metrici monitoring is the first step in a greater integration with a smart and friendly city.

Solution
The administration has special parkings and access points in and near the historic center that are reserved for the people living in the area. The residents here need a monthly access permit.
Also all cars with a weight of over 3.5 tons are forbidden within downtown city limits.
All the paid parking are served by more automated ticket machines located strategically in different points the city. For a better control, the City Hall also wanted to monitor the traffic in key access points - especially the access in the Great Square of Sibiu and some parkings with barriers installed.
In order to have a better monitoring and control of vehicles entering all these spaces - residential or paid parking and access points, the integrators - Tinet Sibiu proposed a solution with 8 cameras strategically placed in the most important points of the historic center and access in this area. For example, they placed cameras at Brukenthal Palace, Cazarma 90, Cetatii and Huet Parkings, among other places.
According to the city's regulations there are some vehicles that have free access: cars belonging to local administration and residents with subscription.
On one hand Metrici is a watchdog for the access in downtown Sibiu and keep track of all activity. On the other hand Metrici is used in the paid parkings as a tool for monitoring the access and record the high and lows of the traffic as well as for comparison with the sums collected with the automated machines.

Sibiu technical data

  • 8 LPR Novus cameras
  • 1 central administration server
  • 8 Metrici licenses - 1 BL license and 7 EL licenses

Results
The administrators can see all the traffic and the calculate the busiest hours for each parking. Also, they have events registered in database and can anytime consult which vehicles entered the restricted area or in the parking lots, if it had the right to do it, and how long it stayed.
Also can check if the number of vehicles entering a specific area match the sums collected from the tourists for the parking.
In future developments, the administrators can use the "open barrier" command in Metrici Web Interface for cars registered in a White List integrated with a database for people with subscription or special access vehicles for the paid parking as well as for the Great Square access.
Also, based on the Metrici reports and statistics, the City Hall can decide on the opportunity of creating more parking spaces, according to the occupancy rate on days/hours.