Smart Parking partners with Queenstown International Airport
Christmas is coming early at Queenstown Airport with the install of over 450 vehicle detection sensors, allowing Smart Parking’s SmartGuide solution to be deployed throughout its terminal car parks.
Queenstown, the ‘adventure capital of New Zealand’, is one of the country’s top tourist destinations. As the gateway to the city, it is important that the customer experience begins at the airport, where travellers are looking for a smooth and easy arrival or departure.
In an effort to aid seamless travel to and from the facility, Queenstown Airport is deploying Smart Parking’s SmartGuide solution throughout its terminal car parks prior to Christmas.
The 450+ vehicle detection sensors are installed to detect the presence of vehicles. The sensors transmit live occupancy information to Smart Parking’s SmartCloud data intelligence platform, which feeds the quantity, type and location of available spaces to dynamic signage that will be placed at the entrance to the airport and on the airport website alerting drivers to vacant bays.
The deployment of this new technology now means that travellers can easily see availability of bays, saving them time when flying from Queenstown Airport and providing them information early to make choices about where to park.
Newly appointed Queenstown Airport GM Commercial and Customer Experience Olivia Pierre says that the aim of the sensor technology is to help airport visitors make more informed choices about their parking and transport options.
“Over the last 18 months Queenstown Airport has invested over $4.2million in its ground transport and car parking offering to ensure an excellent customer experience for airport visitors and a wider choice of options when flying to and from Queenstown.
“Our main focus to date has been improving the parking infrastructure, including expanding our car parking by nearly 70%, bringing back the drop-off zone, and building a new roundabout and dedicated coach parks. The next step has been looking at technology solutions which will further enhance the customer experience.
“We’ve already rolled out ‘Tap & Go’ in the terminal car parks for ease of payment and radio-frequency identification (RFID) for commercial operators which provides a range of benefits.
“Sensor technology will now take us to the next level in providing real-time information. This will give airport visitors more control over their experience and take away the worry of whether there will be a car park for them,” she said.
Rebecca Grainger, NZ National Business Manager for Smart Parking, said “Working with the great team from Queenstown Airport has been an absolute pleasure, we started this technology partnership with the implementation of sensors in the taxi rank to allow taxis to have visibility of the rank whilst queueing off-site to reduce congestion.”
Smart Parking are now working with the Airport on Stage Two of the project which will see the majority of the bays located on the main site have sensors installed by Christmas, which will allow travellers and commuters to have visibility of parking availability and give Queenstown Airport that valuable data of their asset.