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Automotive Minute: Atlanta’s Phoenix Parking Solutions adapts CDC guidelines to valet parking industry

  As restaurants and shopping centers gradually open up and expand services, one less-often thought of aspect of the industry is having to adapt its entire business model. Valet parking companies can't simply offer to-go services or limit the number of people shopping at any one time.  According to the American Public Transportation Association, traveling by public transportation was 10 times safer per mile than traveling by automobile in 2019. However, with the influx of Covid-19 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shifted its guidance on using public transportation, even listing it as one of the riskier behaviors for transmission of the disease.  Data published by Apple Maps shows requests for transit information continues to remain low while driving information is continuing to gain steam, indicating that more people are taking to the road instead of opting for public transportation. This also means they're busy looking for parking spots and...

top tips for hassle-free travel

  1.     Check in online when possible Most airlines will allow you to check-in online before you’ve even reached the airport. In many cases, you have a 48- or 24-hour window before your flight in which you can check-in with utter ease online. 2.     Download the airline app Nowadays, many of the world’s major airlines have apps that their passengers can download. It’s worth simply checking the app store to see if your particular airline has one just for you. The apps will show you a range of information, including whether there are any flight delays or cancellations. 3.     Leave yourself (more than) enough time Remember, catching a flight can be stressful enough as it is without having to deal with an impending time constraint. Of course, you should check online to see how early you have to arrive for your flight. Once you know that, we’d suggest leaving just a little earlier than you think you need to. You must leave room fo...

Make sure that you have the essentials.

  Before you even dream of leaving the house, you need to do this. There are certain things, such as your passport and tickets that you simply can’t travel without. If you’re heading to a country in which you will need a visa, you need to make sure that you have a hard copy of this as well. (Often enough a notification is attached to your passport stating that you have a visa, but it’s still worth taking a copy of your own.) Searches related to parking tips about blogs parking  network forum parking  publications parking  industry parking  industry news parking  news look for  parking parking  website www  parking  

Avoid weighing yourself down

  When it comes to travelling you may not realise the impact your suitcase has on your journey. Jetting off on holiday is so much easier if you are a minimalist packer or opt for a super lightweight case. If you’re packing 30 kilos and don’t have the biceps of The Rock, travelling through the airport will be an effort. Choose a lightweight case with 8 wheel 360 degree technology and the stressful days of lugging your bags through the airport to the gate will be over. Going lightweight means you can also benefit from more weight allowance, perfect for packing those holiday essentials and the less likely you are to be charged excess baggage. Or travel light with just a cabin size case and you’ll be able to get about so much more easily and won’t have to wait at the luggage carousel on arrival, giving you that little bit of extra time to enjoy your holiday. Searches related to parking tips about blogs parking  network forum parking  publications parking  in...

4 top tips for airport parking

  There are many things to think about before heading off on holiday and let’s face it, your airport parking is pretty low down on the list. However, neglecting it could end up costing you time, money and hassle. Read the tips below and booking your airport parking will end up hassle free and could even help you claw back some of that precious holiday budget. 1. Book early Take advantage of the best deals! Many people leave it till the last minute and end up paying for it. Airport parking prices can vary between products and months. Try to book as early as possible as prices tend to increase as the car parks get booked up. If you’re booking quite a few months in advance then make sure your booking is cancel-able in case of any unforeseen circumstances. 2. Choose the product that suits your needs Everyone’s needs are different and it’s vital you choose the correct product in order to have a stress-free experience. After parking your car, you would be transferred to the...

Essential travel tips for the lottery winner

  For the traveling enthusiasts among us – winning the lottery promises us luxury travel nirvana. Our luxury travel dreams encompass the whole experience and not just the glorious end-destination. So naturally, the first thing to be ditched would be travelling commercial airlines (fondly described as ‘cattle class’). No more sitting like a sardine packed into a very small, smelly tin. From now on, it’s private jets and personal stewards. I have always said if you are going to dream, dream big! Then it occurred to me that I wouldn’t know where to start. So I decided to speak to an expert. With a little research I found Jenny Graham, a travel specialist, from luxury travel concierge service,  Quintessentially Travel . Q. “For someone used to travelling economy, an influx of money means no more sardine flying. What is the best way to travel? Private Jet? First class?” A. “Without a doubt, for ultimate luxury, the client has to travel via private jet! Your flight will be sched...

Parking fee?

  The fee (sometimes called a voucher or parking ticket) is issued by the municipality and concerns non-compliance with the communal regulation. It is not a fine, strictly speaking, neither a report, since it is a decriminalized offense. Parking offenses that do not cause discomfort or danger on public roads. The fee is in fact a tax due in return for the use of a public service. A fee will be charged when you violate existing parking regulations (timeout in a disk area or pay zone, for example) and will generally consist of a lump sum per day or half day. Searches related to parking tips about blogs parking  network forum parking  publications parking  industry parking  industry news parking  news look for  parking parking  website www  parking    

Fines are generally of a higher amount than a fee.

  The fine is a report issued by the police and relates to a penal offense. Concerning parking, these are offenses due to inconvenience or endangerment on public roads (eg parking on the sidewalk or in the middle of the roadway). Speeding and other traffic offenses also fall into this category. Fines are generally of a higher amount than a fee. Searches related to parking tips about blogs parking  network forum parking  publications parking  industry parking  industry news parking  news look for  parking parking  website www  parking

5 top tips for hassle-free travel

  While hopping on a plane might help you to satisfy your innate sense of wanderlust, the truth is that it can be something of a hassle as well. We’ve all buckled under the immense strain travelling can take on us in the past! If you want to make your journey as hassle-free as possible, here are a few top tips that you may want to try. 1. Make sure that you have the essentials Before you even dream of leaving the house, you need to do this. There are certain things, such as your passport and tickets that you simply can’t travel without. If you’re heading to a country in which you will need a visa, you need to make sure that you have a hard copy of this as well. (Often enough a notification is attached to your passport stating that you have a visa, but it’s still worth taking a copy of your own.) 2. Avoid weighing yourself down When it comes to travelling you may not realise the impact your suitcase has on your journey. Jetting off on holiday is so much easier if you are a...

No-stopping zone Technology-driven change comes to parking

Parking is inextricably linked to broader patterns of how people and goods move around—and those patterns are in the midst of transformative change. Driven by a series of converging forces (see figure 1), the entire way we get from point A to B is evolving.7 The result could be a new mobility ecosystem that provides faster, cheaper, cleaner, safer, and more efficient transportation than today. Already, advances in vehicle connectivity, smart infrastructure, and IoT applications are changing the possibilities for parking . Sensor-equipped physical assets, such as garages and street meters, can offer operators real-time space availability and maintenance-needs updates, while feeding digital aggregator platforms with pricing data and licenseplate recognition-based payment systems. For the consumer, such features can reduce search times and create a more seamless experience. For operators, it can enable more efficient use of assets and increase revenue by reducing the number of customers w...

Making surround-view technology more widely available

Car manufacturers want to bring the most basic surround-view features into their entry and mid-range vehicles, and place advanced systems featuring automation on their higher-end and luxury models. Ideally, manufacturers could offer their customers some continuity among the systems – with a familiar look and feel to each – and the ability to upgrade the level of features through simple hardware or software changes. A scalable implementation represents a challenge for Tier-1 manufacturers and their SoC vendors, however. Many SoC vendors offer solutions for only part of the equation – a simple SoC with camera input and visualization capabilities but no capability for analytics, or a system capable of automation that is expensive, power-hungry and impractical for lesser uses. Manufacturers have no choice but to branch their development efforts into different systems, resulting in duplicated effort, higher development costs and no simple way to maintain continuity across a vehicle line...

Basic surround-view Parking systems

Parking Surround-view systems generally use four to six wide-angle-view cameras mounted on the front, rear and sides of a vehicle. The fish-eye lenses used on these cameras produce a distorted bowl-shaped view that geometric alignment algorithms correct. These corrected images then need balancing and color correction for consistency and final stitching into a single 360-degree view around the car. An animated model of the car is rendered at the center of the stitched image to give the driver a bird’s eye view of her environment. It is also possible to add other overlays to the image that show the car’s position relative to objects that the cameras see. A system-on-chip (SoC) for this application requires capacity for multiple camera inputs, an image signal processor and hardware acceleration for image adjustment and tuning, a graphics processing unit for creating the car model, and image overlays and processing cores for algorithmic analysis of the images.

Automated valet parking.

The ability to find an open parking space in a lot and safely park and un-park a vehicle without driver involvement includes even more automated capabilities. The driver may be outside the vehicle, perhaps even some distance away, when the automated system begins the parking or un-parking process. The sensor types here are the same as for an automated parking system , but the algorithmic complexity is greatly enhanced, including the addition of simultaneous localization and mapping and path-planning algorithms. These algorithms provide the location and intelligence required to interpret the full environment in real time and make safe decisions in the parking process. Driverless automation requires an Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) rating of ASIL-D for the full scope of sensor fusion processing, localization, path planning and drive-by-wire instruction delivery.

Automated parking systems use a set of camera sensors similar to surround-view systems.

Automated parking systems use a set of camera sensors similar to surround-view systems, and usually include short-range radar, ultrasound and high-performance inertial measurement unit sensors. In addition to camera processing and surround-view image creation, this system also needs to perform object detection and classification for parking spot and lane detection. Automated parking systems combine data from all sensors and use vision and sensor fusion algorithms to safely maneuver the vehicle into an available space. The system may also record video streams from the cameras to log vehicle actions while parking.  These logs can be used for incident reporting and to improve future algorithm performance.  An SoC for this more demanding application will need greater processing for sensor fusion and computer vision and neural network processing for the detection and classification algorithms. The SoC may also include video encode acceleration for recording, and access to exte...

The Future of the $100 Billion Parking Industry

From self-driving vehicles to the rate of urbanization to the buzz of the car-sharing economy, it’s easy to surmise the death of parking. Yes, vehicle ownership is down and, yes, as The New York Times reported, the millennial generation values technology over cars. But the death of parking? Not quite. According to a recent analysis by Frost & Sullivan, the $100 billion worldwide parking industry is expected to attract institutional and strategic investments to the tune of $200 million to $250 million over the next three to five years, mostly to spur innovation and smarter parking.  A big reason for this infusion of capital is to remedy the inefficiencies in the ways that we park, per recent findings. So why has the parking industry taken so long to innovate? Until recently, parking and innovation have mixed like water and oil. This is largely due to the slow-changing nature of the two-headed parking industry, which comprises both on-street and off-street parking. On-...

U.S. Airlines Struggle as Airports Become Parking Lots

In early May, Warren Buffett divested all of his investment firm’s holdings in the four major U.S. airlines, warning that the “world has changed” for the aviation industry due to the coronavirus crisis.  In mid May, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he saw a bumpy road ahead for the airline industry and predicted that a major carrier would not survive 2020 as a result. It appears Buffett and Calhoun were on to something as the numbers at the end of May are nothing less than shocking. As of the end of May, a full 50% of the airliners in the fleets of U.S. airlines – some 3,054 aircraft – were parked and many are unlikely to be used again in the future. Passenger loads have plummeted: almost three-quarters of all flights are less than 50% full, according to figures from Airlines for America, an industry trade group representing major U.S. carriers.  The group said that the average number of passengers on a domestic flight is 47, compared to 92 in the first two months of 2020. ...