Hunt for parking at The Dubai Mall gets smart

The Roads and Transport Authority's (RTA) smart parking application will now allow users to locate available parking spaces at The Dubai Mall, multi-storey parking buildings and certain areas on Sheikh Zayed road. The updated version of the app, which was introduced by the RTA in September 2014, is available for download on the Android platform.
The primary aim of the update is to encourage private spaces like shopping malls and hotels to incorporate their parking facilities with the RTA app, officials said at a media roundtable conference on Wednesday. As of now, the public sector owns 125,000 parking slots in Dubai.
Over 93,000 parking transactions are carried out via the app and SMS.
The update will take effect on the iOS platform in about a week, Ahmed Hashem Bahrozyan, CEO, Licensing Agency and Head of Smart App Team, said.
The Dubai Mall is the first shopping mall in Dubai to come under the app's gamut and officials clarified that as of now, people will not have to pay to use the app to spot parking slots in the mall.
Maitha bin Adi, CEO of Dubai Traffic and Roads Corporation, clarified that the app will not give the exact location of free slots, but instead will give details of available parking spaces in different zones by method of colour-coding. Parking sensors have been installed using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems.
Bin Adi said: "The multi-storey parking buildings have multiple access points into the building. As users enter the building, the parking occupancy numbers of each building will be mentioned in the app. Another interesting feature on the app is that users can take a picture of the spot in which they have parked, and store it on the app, which will help the driver remember the exact location of the car. This can be done with the simple help of the GPS facility on the driver's smart phone. The app also provides the user with the direction to, and exact location of the multi-storey building and shopping malls.”
The mWallet feature on the app allows users to bypass the SMS charges while paying for a parking ticket, and the new sensors can also spot handicap parking spots on the streets, malls and multi-storey parking lots.
Pilot test
"We ran a pilot test on 300 parking sensors that were installed on the available spots starting from Crowne Plaza Hotel on ... Sheikh Zayed road till Shangri-La on the road towards Abu Dhabi. We can say that we are satisfied with the results, and this is the first phase of increasing the reach of the app,” said Bahrozyan.
The RTA is encouraging more shopping malls to list their parking spaces under the app. "We are in talks with most of the major shopping malls in Dubai, especially those who have the sensor technology in place.”
Future plans
Abdullah Ali Abdul Razak Al Madani, CEO of Corporate Technical Support Services Sector and Head of Smart City initiative at the RTA, said: "This is only the beginning. We have plans to extend the street sensor technology into extremely congested areas like Bur Dubai, Karama and Oud Metha, which will greatly reduce traffic and parking-related congestion. We also want this app to be the answer to all parking-related problems in Dubai.”
The parking app has clocked fewer than 60,000 downloads, while the Smart Drive application, one of Dubai's most popular app, has had over half a million downloads.
Source: Khaleej Times