IdentiPark for Strasbourg TGV
by Jonathan Hollowes
As part of the development and expansion of Frances state-of-art TGV rail service, the parking garage at the Strasbourg Station, Gare Wodli, has been completely rebuilt. The quest for a matching advanced guidance system led Vinci Park to select the IdentiPark parking guidance system for the facility. Selection was based on factors such as aesthetics as well as the more important issues of systems design, information feedback and reporting, reliability, back up and service. The reputations of both Nortech, the designers and manufacturers of the system, and Accor, the very competent distributors in France, weighed heavily on the decision. Nortech has been designing and making parking detectors, controllers, access and ancillary products for 38years and Accor has been marketing them for nearly as long a period.
The execution of the Gare Wodli installation was exceptionally professional. All installations, cabling and ducting were subsurface. Enhanced sensors (featuring bright inbuilt multi LED displays) were used throughout, with Bay Occupancy Displays deployed where sensors were obscured from view. Parking bays for the disabled were identified with blue displays in the sensors. IdentiPark VMS (Variable Message Signs) and NMS (Numerical Message Signs) were used to indicate the state of the Gare and the number of vacant spaces on each level. The system was interfaced with overhead third party traffic detectors for level counting and with the facilitys pay on foot system, (the ability to interface with other systems being extremely important). IGDs (intersection guidance displays arrows illuminating the direction of vacant bays) were not necessary on this installation because of the easy layout of the facility. The installations were carried out by Georges Loeber and commissioned by Accor and Nortech.
Since installation the system has operated without a hitch and the robust construction of the sensors should obviate the problems caused by damaged sensors in other earlier systems.
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