Showing posts with label TimeTec Parking. Show all posts

TimeTec Parking 8/12: Cloud Season Parking System


Season parking allows the car owner to park his/her car regularly, near his/her home or workplace, at a fixed and always discounted monthly rate. Even at a discounted rate, season parking income is steadier than casual parking. Season parking as part of the parking management system is always considered less challenging than casual parking.

This is not true.

In fact, in terms of daily operation, yes, season parking would pose a lesser problem because season parkers are "known" customers, easier to manage, and casual parkers are random; anything can happen. But in terms of the system, season parking is far more complicated. Because of the "known" user and a special discount provided, it kind of becomes a member. Hence, the season parking system is also a sort of 'membership' system; it has an application form, issuance of a special pass, deposit collection, monthly payment, overdue payment, 'membership' renewal, and termination. Besides individual 'members', it has group 'members', and their company pays their monthly 'membership' fees. And to add to the complication, it may have different types of 'membership', different parking rates, either with a dedicated or non-dedicated parking lot. Some parking sites even have nested parking areas for season parkers.

None of the above matters for the casual parkers; just set the parking rate; it applies to all.  

As TimeTec Parking Management System is a cloud-based system and App-enabled, it provides more features for season parking such as interactive capability likes payment reminders, online application, online payment, renewal, etc. It supports RFID cards, TNG cards, QR codes, and License Plate Recognition (LPR) for season parking access. When a parking site uses a QR code or LPR as season parking access, it can save the card issuance, and all administrative processes can be done over the internet.   


 
Teh Hon Seng, Founder and CEO of TimeTec Group
 
 
 
"There is a common problem faced by commercial buildings during peak hours when casual mixed with season parking. If parking lots are dedicated to season parkers, during peak hours, casual parkers would have difficulty finding parking even though there are still quite a lot of empty lots overhung with car plate numbers belonging to season parkers. What a waste! But in contrast, if parking bays are non-dedicated, season parkers would be upset by not finding a place to park their cars during peak hours while paying their monthly fees." Said TimeTec Group CEO, Teh Hon Seng.  


 
 
"How to balance the two requires arithmetic skills. TimeTec Smart Parking System caters for both parking types, and it is built-in with an analytic data module. Consolidating the peak hours can help to optimize the bay's allotment for season parking to ease traffic and reduce wait time at the parking site."   

He said, "To further reduce the unutilized season parking lots freed for casual parking during peak hours, it allows season parkers to notify parking operators about the availability. It is even better when integrated with TimeTec Smart Workforce System such as TimeTec TA for time attendance and TimeTec Leave for leave management. The system can auto-release the season parking lots when season parkers applied for leave, work from home or outstation, with the pre-consent agreement signed between season parkers and the parking operator at a certain discount rate for season pass renewal."   
 

Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  

Stay tuned for the 9/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link:
English version: TimeTec Smart Parking 7/12: Pre-entry and the Next Activities
Malay version: Parkir Pintar TimeTec 7/12: Pra-Masuk dan Aktiviti Seterusnya
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统7/12：停车前和停车后的活动
 
About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking 7/12: Pre-entry and the Next Activities


Seldom parking operation cares about pre-entry and the next activities; parking should be just some brief happenings at the entry and exit, plus the payment process. As long as it is free from any hiccups, it is considered a sound enough parking system.

But digital technology provides possibilities to link parking with other related activities, from pre-entry to the next activities after a driver parks his/her vehicle. For example, it would be great if a parking system can provide an availability check before we even step out of our home, letting us know that the car park is full rather than finding it out once we reached the destination.

It is even better to secure a parking bay before we arrive at a bustling mall by the likes of Booking a Spot for a movie. If we are VIP customers of a merchant, we get a parking bay reserved when we confirm an appointment. It is even great if the merchant or the host company can absorb the parking fee to display better hospitability.  

All of the above pre-entry features are impossible without a cloud parking solution. The next activities after the car has been parked are more abundant. We list down the following as a reference:


 
From a security perspective, TimeTec Parking System can integrate with the TimeTec Guard Patrol system. Therefore, when a user presses a panic button on a Mall App/Parking App, it will trigger the mobile device of the patrol guard on duty at the parking site. And simultaneously, the parking office's alarm will go off. Because the data includes the GPS coordinates,  the guard can quickly identify the user location to dispatch a rescue at once.  

More possibilities could have happened for commercial shopping malls if shopping malls have their app for consumers to download. The integration between the parking system and the mall App can provide more interaction and better consumer engagement. They can extend a discount or offset of parking fee to different merchants, push dynamic and targeted ad whenever customers enter a car park, book a spot, find my car, parking records and receipts; all are illustrated in the integration chart as follow:


 
For commercial office towers, parking can be treated as the threshold for the entire people flow, extending to other access points such as doors, turnstiles and lifts. When TimeTec Parking integrates with TimeTec Visitor Management System, the system can notify the host when the guest enters the parking. Suppose it bridged with TimeTec TA for time attendance and TimeTec Leave for a busy office tower. In that case, the parking operator could free the season parking spaces whenever season parkers take leave or work from home or go outstation.  Hence, parking operators can manage the occupancy of the parking site to its fullest.

For high-security buildings like a science laboratory, military offices, etc., the management can set parking access denied mode if employees try to access at non-working hours when the parking system is integrated with the TimeTec Smart Workforce Management solution.  



Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  

Stay tuned for the 8/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link:
English version: TimeTec Smart Parking 6/12: Cloud Parking Management System
Malay version: Parkir Pintar TimeTec 6/12: Sistem Pengurusan Parkir Cloud
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统6/12：云停车管理系统

About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking 6/12: Cloud Parking Management System

Unlike on-street parking, the off-street parking system is hardware intensive, requiring heavy investment in hardware equipment. Although the advancement of technology has largely brought down the hardware cost over the years, hardware investment is still quite significant when it comes to pricing. Besides, in its operation, another noteworthy part of expenditure still goes to hardware maintenance.
 
Despite the hardware cost, the software plays a more critical role in a parking system to ensure the success of parking deployment, especially when cashless and touchless are becoming the new trend that requires a revamping of software from its foundation. A shift from purely on-premise Windows-based/Web-based software to include a cloud platform is inevitable.
 
TimeTec Parking Management System, or PMS as its acronym, intends to change the hardware-driven parking industry to emphasize software as the main driver in the digital transformation era.
 
“The parking requirements for commercial office towers and shopping malls are almost identical in general. Both need a system that can cater for casual and season parking. However, because the traffic is heavier in shopping malls and they receive more random visitors, the parking system has to tailor and accommodate the nature of its operation to suit different environments. For example, shopping malls would prefer more in-depth data analytics that can provide descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive and preemptive analysis than office towers. Furthermore, promo code and validation tied up with shopper’s purchase activities are essential for shopping malls, and they need more flexible parking rules.” TimeTec CEO Teh Hon Seng elaborated how software should handle the differences in parking operations.  
 
He continued, “Whereas office towers emphasize more on season pass subscriptions, renewals, nested parking, etc. for both tenant companies and individuals; even casual parking is equally important, less variety of parking methods are normally offered to users if compared to shopping malls. And for hotels, besides casual parking, they normally require valet parking. To ease the management, building owners that owned multiple buildings should ensure that their parking system can manage multiple parking sites at different locations. And, some buildings may impose fines for haphazard parkers, the same parking system should have the enforcement module.”
 
 
“The good news is, the comprehensiveness of TimeTec PMS covers all of the above and more. Another advantage of TimeTec PMS is that it supports a wide range of front-end parking and payment methods. This benefit helps the operator to generate just one report by consolidating all the data from different parking methods and payments to ease administration.”
 
Does your PMS come with a parking App?
“Yes.”
 
Do you provide API for your PMS to integrate with a third-party system such as a shopping mall App?
“Yes.”
 

 
The summary of TimeTec PMS is illustrated in the following diagram:
 


 
Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  

Stay tuned for the 7/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link:
English version: TimeTec Smart Parking 5/12: Unattended TimeTec Parking Kiosk, TPK
Malay version: Parkir Pintar TimeTec 5/12: Kiosk Tanpa Pengawasan, TimeTec Parking Kiosk, TPK
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统5/12：无人值守的TimeTec TPK停车终端机  
 
About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.
 
03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking 5/12: Unattended TimeTec Parking Kiosk, TPK


When retrieving a parking ticket to enter and paying cash to exit a parking site is the only option, the life of a parking solution provider is much simpler. Their job is to install unattended ticket dispensers at every parking entrance and terminals at every exit to accept and verify whether the parking ticket is paid before they lift the barrier. Besides, they will encourage building owner to place a few more autopay stations that carry a hefty price tag, plus, PC preloaded with parking software operates in the parking office. No internet needed, all locally networked.

When ticket and cash are removed to become ticketless and cashless, the parking industry suddenly stuffed with many options. TnG card, credit and debit card, e-Wallet, license plate recognition, smartphone QR code access and etc.; none dominates and monopolizes the market yet. Even the TnG card, the most popular among all, some minority prefers to use a credit card, especially foreigners with a short stay that don't usually use TnG cards. Hence to fulfil the market needs, some parking sites try to offer as many cashless and ticketless methods as possible. And, cash is detached from the network, but most of the cashless need a real-time online environment to verify.

In the end, we witness some small parking islands at the entrance and exit overstuffed with many different terminals that make you confused as to where to tap your card on. Too many parking terminals signal too many individual parking softwares at the back-end that could cause report consolidation problems.

"We are introducing unattended TimeTec Parking Kiosk, TPK to solve the problem. Our motto is One Kiosk Solves It All. The slim design, state-of-the-art TPK, offer ticketless, cashless and touchless functionalities, equipped with a wide range of parking and payment methods, such as TnG card, license plate recognition (LPR), QR code, eWallet, credit and debit cards, and etc., at the entry and exit lanes, to ease the access and payment process. With this, the costly autopay station can be eliminated entirely. We list the superiority and affordability of our TPK in the following table."


"We don't encourage the parking owners to offer all methods; it should adhere to users' preference according to their parking environment. Because some cashless parking methods with their dominant characteristics, for example, LPR, may make other methods irrelevant. We have a professional team to evaluate and provide the best mixture of solutions that suit parking owners. Since we are a one-stop solution provider with a strong R&D team, we also developed the back-end system that caters for all the cashless methods that we offer at the front end."

"With the availability of the Internet for cashless methods, we designed and equipped the kiosk with IP intercom instead of the conventional intercom system, IP CCTV instead of analogue CCTV to fully unleash the power of online capability."   
 


Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  Stay tuned for the 6/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysia kini for TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link:

English version: TimeTec Smart Parking 4/12: The Smart Parking Operator
Malay version: Parkir Pintar TimeTec 4/12: Operator Parkir Pintar
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统4/12：停车场运营的变化
 
About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking 4/12: The Smart Parking Operator


The constant change in our life is the result of relentless technological change. Individuals, companies and societies have to warm up to change to adapt to technological advancement. Adaptation is just a passive reaction to the change. Those foresighted and pro-active will benefit more than those who are merely reactive and adapt to the change.

The same happened to the parking industry. Whether the industry players like it or not, the change is now taking place quietly. The most significant change in this industry is the role of the parking operation. It is shifting from professional parking operators to building owner or building management companies. There are more than 400 big and small parking operators in Malaysia, and the number is expected to reduce tremendously over the next 5-10 years.

What causes the decline in this number?

TimeTec Group CEO Teh Hon Seng said, “In fact, this is nothing new. Some building owners, especially shopping malls, already ran their parking operation for a long time. To them, this is a cash cow; why should they outsource it to a third party?”

Technology further drives this trend:
1. Newer and better technology is not costing more but less. Compared to parking equipment a decade, parking owners find it just two-thirds or half of the total investment.

2. The new technology improves automation and reduces staffing. For example, from cash handling parking system to cashless, it eliminates human errors, risk in cash transportation, and tedious daily processes. Besides, remote terminal management, IP intercom and multiple parking locations management, etc., turn all the complexity of parking management into a much simpler operation.
 
3. Reduce maintenance cost due to parking equipment getting cheaper and the use of lesser operators.

We can almost conclude that the above three factors sealed the fate of professional parking operators. But not necessarily the doom. Because when building management companies can move to manage parking operations, parking operators can likewise extend their portfolio to manage buildings, especially when the new technology in parking involves connecting parking activity to other activities related to building management such as visitor management, access control, and tenant management, etc. In short, digital transformation breaks the barrier between these two professions; hence the merging of the two businesses is the natural course of development.

 
“Since we uphold the concept of parking was never a standalone activity when we designed TimeTec Smart Parking System, it’s already a part of our much larger TimeTec Digital Building Ecosystem. Hence, as a solution provider for a smart parking system, we foresee the trend about arriving in this industry. We are here to deliver the better transformation that will benefit the parking industry,” commented Teh Hon Seng.
 

 
Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  

Stay tuned for the 5/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link:
English version: TimeTec Smart Parking 3/12: Parking - Past, Present & Future
Malay version: Parkir Pintar TimeTec 3/12: Parkir - Dulu, Kini & Masa Hadapan
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统3/12：停车科技的过去、现在和未来

About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking 1/12: Go Beyond Parking



"Parking is never a standalone activity."

TimeTec Smart Parking System, equipped with ticketless, cashless and touchless functionalities, is enhanced with the next activities flow, be it shopping in malls, business visits, work-related activity, going home, etc., extended to its fullest, helping building owners achieving better parking experience for both casual and season parking.

TimeTec Smart Parking System also offers a wide range of parking and payment methods at its front-end, such as Touch 'n Go card, license plate recognition, QR code, eWallet, credit and debit cards, etc., furnished in a state-of-the-art unattended kiosk, TimeTec TPK, at the entry and exit lanes, to ease the access and payment process.

 
 
For the back-end, cloud-based TimeTec Smart Parking System provides real-time parking updates for the administrator, suitable for a single parking site to multiple large-scale parking deployment locations. TimeTec Smart Parking System's comprehensive features like Flexi parking rules, remote terminal monitoring, parking app, valet parking, enforcement module, availability check, find my car, book a spot, promo code, multiple merchants and rules validation, analytical dashboard and consolidated reports, etc., efficiently reduce cost and improve productivity for parking operation in modern building management. And it also provides the opportunity for building owners to further monetize with TimeTec i-Ad and Near Field Commerce modules.

With TimeTec Digital Building Ecosystem as its backbone, we revolutionize the parking industry and bring TimeTec Smart Parking System beyond parking to become a digital gateway for modern buildings to ensure seamless parking data flow connecting to the next activities; and to spark endless possibilities in the digital transformation era."

 
 
The above is the script extracted from the TimeTec Smart Parking System's marketing video, precisely described the parking solution that TimeTec has offered and accurately explained the objective of TimeTec entered the market is to accelerate the digitalization process for the parking industry.

According to Teh Hon Seng, the CEO of TimeTec Group, "Cashless is fast becoming the mainstream for parking, and touchless would be the next trend; but the two are payment and access method, not the gist of digitalization. We have to emphasize data flow for digitalization, especially for a parking system; data flow is more important than other systems because parking is never the only motive or even hardly a motive for any car owners. Your next activity is definitely more important than parking. Hence, the parking system shouldn't stop at parking. The connectivity of a parking system to the related system is to ensure the free flow of data that creates a better value for car park users and building owners."

Teh Hon Seng, Founder and CEO of TimeTec Group

 
"Better parking experience for users, a new income stream for building owners," concluded Teh Hon Seng in his very first interview for the smart parking series. Stay tuned for further elaboration on TimeTec Smart Parking 2/12 series next Wednesday.
     
Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for appointments for product presentation and demonstration. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  
 

 
 
About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions, unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.

Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.


03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking (2/12): A Whole New Parking Experience


"As a user, you arrive at a parking site of a shopping mall or a commercial building that you rarely visit; still, the barrier auto lifted for you. You feel good because it is a welcome sign. However, the feeling might change later when you are asked to scan a QR code that prompts you to a web page to click a few buttons to make a parking payment before you exit. On a bad day, one misstep may lead you to quit the page, and you have to walk back all the way to scan the same QR code, and repeat the process all over again until payment is made."

"When you think that everything finally goes your way, you pick up your car and join the queue. When it is your turn, the barrier remains blocked. I agree that the chance is slim at around 1-2% only for the unrecognized license plates; hardly you'd be the one. No problem. But if the unlucky guy is just several cars in front of you, you'd still end up stuck in the extra-long queue."

"Perhaps this is the intentional hospitality by the shopping mall? Fast checking you in, 'reluctant' to check you out?" humoured Teh Hon Seng, CEO of TimeTec Group. But he concluded, "Good at entry, bad at the exit, doesn't make a good parking experience."

Then what constitutes a better parking experience? And what is the method?


"The best parking experience should be ticketless, cashless, touchless and uninterrupted. The barriers are just for “decoration” purposes."

He added, "For LPR or license plate recognition technology to become perfect, it should solve these two problems. First is improving OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to accurately read close to 100% of Malaysia's car plate numbers. Second, no payment action between entries and exits. It should be a simple payment notification pushed to your e-Wallet after you leave the parking site. We may achieve it one day with technology advancement and Bank Negara policy. For the time being, LPR should work fine for season parking with pre-registered car plate numbers."

"There is another access method, cloud-enabled RFID, which I think can achieve the parking experience users anticipate. For example, if Touch 'n Go extends its RFID tag to the parking industry, it will achieve a touchless method for parking access plus the uninterrupted payment process."   


Teh Hon Seng, Founder and CEO of TimeTec Group

"Besides the two parking methods that can achieve near-perfect cashless and touchless experience in the future, there is another possible perfect solution, the e-Plate system that the government plans for better enforcement. If it is implemented and extended to parking, it will change the landscape of the parking industry by replacing all the existing parking methods. The centralized e-plate system usually comes with a microchip, embedded with information of car owner and drivers, as well as car details such as the engine and chassis numbers plus the colour and model, in which a handheld or dashboard-mounted chip reader can tap on."        

 
 
 
 "No matter how advanced the development is, the parking method is just the front-end of the entire parking system. Our in-house developed smart parking ecosystem supports both LPR and TNG systems. Nonetheless, the next activities extended from the parking system can broaden a better parking experience. For example, when you visit a commercial building, the host will absorb your parking fee, or when you park at a shopping mall, you will receive a welcome message telling you that the store you visited last time has a special promotion for you."

In digital transformation, users are indulged with more choices and possibilities, and the best parking experience checklist grows longer.   


Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com  or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com  for more information.  

Stay tuned for the 3/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for the TimeTec Smart Parking announcement. For the previous article, click this link:
English version: TimeTec Smart Parking 1/12: Go Beyond Parking
Malay version:  Parkir Pintar TimeTec 1/12: Lebih Daripada Sekadar Parkir
Chinese version: TimeTec智能停车系统1/12: 超越停车的局限
 
About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

TimeTec Smart Parking 3/12: Parking - Past, Present & Future

Parking history started not when the car was invented in 1866 by Karl Benz, but when cars became widely available in the early 20th century. The history forked in two ways, on-street and off-street parking. For on-street parking, it started in the early 1930s in Oklahoma City, United States. For on-street parking, the parking meter was invented and introduced by Carl Magee to solve the haphazard parking of cars everywhere, causing traffic congestion problems. The installation of the parking meters didn't only solve the traffic problems but also created a new business revenue and a new cost for vehicle owners who wanted to park their cars downtown.

Magee started the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company to manufacture the parking meters. The company later changed its name to POM (the initials of Park-O-Meter), and it is still active in manufacturing parking meters today.

 
 
For public off-street parking, the history traced back much earlier than on-street parking. As more people owned cars, parking became a problem, and cities were looking for a solution to park as many cars as possible on as little space as possible, especially for off-street parking when cars at that time weren't weather-resistant as today's, which preference would be indoor garage-based parking. In 1905: Garage Rue de Ponthieu built the very first automated parking garage in Paris, France. It was a multi-story car park site with an internal lift, which moved the cars from one level to another, with the help of some car park attendants to drive and park the cars in available spaces; or today we called it valet parking. Garage Rue de Ponthieu wasn't a fully automated parking garage, but many consider this garage to be the first with the automated elements and, therefore, the forerunner of the Automated Parking System. Technically, it was a semi-automated parking garage.

1905: Garage Rue de Ponthieu, Paris

Nowadays, all building developments have to allocate specific parking spaces that adhered to cities and municipalities' ratios to ensure adequate parking spaces. For example, a retail mall will generally have a higher parking ratio than an office tower. All kinds of parking system and technologies evolved to fulfil the different requirements over the past decades.

Teh Hon Seng, CEO of TimeTec Group, commented, "For a long period, parking access and fees collection system has been transformed from a manual system to unmanned ticketing and cash collecting machine. Now TimeTec Parking came in the digitalization era to give the parking system another boost, transforming it into a ticketless, cashless and touchless system, which we will discuss in the next few articles in this parking series."

 
After cashless and touchless, what would be the next wave of parking system in the next twenty to thirty years?  

"I'm afraid there would be no parking system by then. We can predict that autonomous or driverless cars would flood the roads in the next two to three decades, and fewer people need to own cars. Carmakers and e-hailing service companies would jointly operate autonomous cars. These cars no longer need parking spaces; they will pick you and drop you off at the right place and at the right time. The arrival of autonomous cars marked the end of the parking system."    

"But since TimeTec Parking emphasizes something beyond parking and the connectivity of continuous activities in the entire digital ecosystem, the omission of parking activity does not break the chain of data flow to achieve better automation for urban living."


Please contact Kelvin Lim, Sales Manager, at kelvin.lim@timeteccloud.com or 012-6891180 for product presentation and demonstration appointments. You may also call 03-80709933 general line or write to info@timeteccloud.com for more information.  

Stay tuned for the 4/12 series next Wednesday on Malaysiakini for TimeTec Smart Parking. For the previous article, click this link:
English version: TimeTec Smart Parking (2/12): A Whole New Parking Experience
Malay version: Parkir Pintar TimeTec (2/12): Pengalaman Parkir Serba Baharu
Chinese version: TimeTec智慧停车系统（2/12）：全新的停车体验

About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites: TimeTec Cloud,  TimeTec Building, TimeTec Parking.
 
Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions, including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia, Qatar, South Africa etc.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Product - TimeTec Parking

Digital Building Ecosystem( 7 of 13) : Cashless & Touchless Trend for Parking


Parking Management System and Parking Access System are two different concepts. Without parking fee collection, any parking barriers or boom gates set up to control car movements would fall under the parking access; it is a part of the access control system category. For example, most residential buildings in Malaysia do not collect parking fees, but parking fees are applied for both tenants and visitors for commercial buildings. In short, Parking Management System is a Parking Access System with an added Payment System. But in a larger perspective, the Parking System is just one of the major components of the Digital Building Ecosystem, be it collecting parking fees or not. 


"When we travelled to Indonesia for a residential community project, the developer told us that their community is still using guards to collect cash for parking and manually issuing the receipts. When I frowned a bit, his assistant interjected, 'our guards are trustable.' His boss smiled at the statement and said, “You wouldn't know." Teh Hon Seng, the CEO of TimeTec Group, recalled his visit to Jakarta in late 2019. 




Teh Hon Seng, CEO of TimeTec Group

"Then I learned that a parking bay is normally not part and parcel for house buyers in Indonesia, and I realized that parking management system is one of the main concerns for developers in Indonesia for the entire digital smart building project."

In fact, the manual parking system has already long gone in Malaysia, replaced by automated ticket dispensers and cash payment terminals in most of the parking sites for the past two decades. Currently, the parking management system is at another crossroad, in the midst of digital transformation towards cashless and touchless parking. 

"We were active in the access control market for the past twenty years; hence parking access was not new to us. To complete our Digital Building Ecosystem, and at the same time to grab the opportunity for the parking transformation, we ventured and started the development of a cloud parking management system four years ago. Unlike ticket and cash, one method for all users, very straightforward; for cashless and touchless, we have to take care of multiple methods, mix and match, because there is simply no single method perfectly fit for our unique environment. For example, when mentioning cashless, we have Touch 'n Go TNG card, credit card, debit card, eWallet; each one has its supporters. To accommodate users from having to go to the central payment machine to pay their parking fees before exiting, the cashless methods have to be installed and integrated with the parking access system at the entry and exit points. And, that adds a complication to a parking system."

Teh pointed out, "All of these payment methods achieve a cashless objective. But, when it comes to touchless, all of them failed in user convenience because users still have to wind down their car window to tap cards on a machine or turn on a smartphone to scan the QR code at the in and out parking lanes."

He continued, "What is the best parking experience? When you have to do nothing. You drive in and out of a parking site by doing nothing. No winding down of your car window, no pulling out of any card and phone, and no physically making payment even electronically."

"At the moment, it seems like both the LPR (License Plate Recognition) and the RFID technology can fulfil the ideal touchless requirements, but practically not without a problem. For a casual parking site with random visitors, how it acquires unknown users to stick RFID tags on their cars? Who pays for the cost? And the different parking site has its own tag? That is not viable. And for LPR, there is no 100% accuracy in car plate recognition; what is the acceptable backup method if the reading fails? The biggest loophole of LPR in Malaysia is the smooth entry and exit experience, interrupted by a payment process in between. Even ridiculous, users are stopped at the exit lane, have to wind down their windows and tap a credit card or a TNG card before the exit. It defeats the purpose of an LPR, and I call this a half LPR system."

"The best parking experience should be ticketless, cashless, touchless and uninterruptible by the payment process. The barriers are just for “decoration” purposes. Any parking front end system that can fulfill these conditions will enjoy higher market share. And I’m sure it is achievable by looking at technological advancement.”


TimeTec now has its back-end cloud parking management system seamlessly integrated with the TNG System. It also connects to other modules in TimeTec Digital Building Ecosystem for a complete operation. It allows data to flow to the next activities to improve automation, security, and possible new income stream revenue stream. 

"This is just the beginning of the digital transformation in the parking industry. The journey would take years, and we are ready to join the race not only in the Malaysia market but also in the rest of the world," commented Teh Hon Seng.

For FREE demo and consultation, contact Mr. Kelvin Lim, Associate Manager, Sales and Marketing of TimeTec Parking Sdn. Bhd. at kelvin.lim@i-neighbour.com (012-6891180) or General line and email: 03-80709933 and info@timeteccloud.com.

Stay tuned with TimeTec for the next Digital Building Ecosystem announcement every Wednesday! Click here for Series 6 of 13



About TimeTec
TimeTec Group was established in 2000. Over 20 years, the Group had developed three homegrown globally recognized IT brands, FingerTec, TimeTec and iNeighbour, for workforce management, security, smart office, smart residential and smart township solutions unleashing of the power of biometrics, cloud & edge computing, IoT and AI technologies. All these solutions connect and change the landscape of work life and home life in a larger ecosystem. Through a vast network, TimeTec Group distributes its biometric hardware products and 16 cloud applications, including IoT devices, to more than 150 countries worldwide. Visit our company websites at www.timeteccloud.com, www.fingertec.com, www.ineighbour.com, www.timetecbuilding.com

Various renowned clients have subscribed to TimeTec various solutions including IOI Properties, Putrajaya Holdings, Ibraco, Binastra, Thriven, Hock Seng Lee, QSR Brands, Central Sugars Refinery CSR, Sunway Constructions, Mamee, Yakult, Nano Malaysia Berhad, and many more. The versatility and feasibility of TimeTec products also attract various international customers from all over the world, including Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia.

03-8070 9933     |     Email     |     www.timeteccloud.com     |     Interest Form
Cashless & Touchless

TimeTec Valet Courtesy & Transparency



TimeTec Valet POS
TimeTec Valet, a cloud-based valet parking system to help valet parking business owner to eliminate the cash handling risk, increase the daily operation efficiency and provide better payment convenience to the valet customers.





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