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The Edinburgh Airport is one of Scotland’s busiest airports and required a change in their approach as parking woes mounted. To solve this problem, at the start of 2019, the Edinburgh Airport announced that it had invested £12 million in new technology to implement Drop & Go parking service at the heart of the Airport’s approach to optimize airport parking spaces.

The approach is termed as a ‘drop and go’ parking service which in combination with the expected addition of 5000 new parking spaces by the year 2021, is designed to help improve the parking experience at the airport and economize commuting. This smart parking system approach is an innovative attempt by the Edinburgh Airport and one which is very likely to yield highly positive results.

How Does ‘Park & Go’ parking service Work?

The Drop & Go parking service requires the implementation of high-definition cameras that are capable of taking a 360-degree image of the vehicle. This captures the necessary details of the car like the car model and license plate information for the purpose of identification. The process is also significantly faster and more efficient than legacy approaches to parking at the airport.

The process incorporates spacious ferry lanes making it easy for drivers to park their vehicles a short distance away from the purpose-built reception area. This makes the parking experience a smooth and convenient experience when compared to trying to fit cars in small allotted parking lots. At this point, passengers would have received a digital ticket either via email or in the booking history section of the smart parking application. These digital tickets can be scanned at kiosks where keys of the vehicle can also be dropped off through a secure chute.

Also Read: Why Airport Parking Is So Expensive

Again, the automated nature of the entire process is a vast improvement from prior technology. Passengers will then be able to proceed to check-in at the airport and prepare for their travel.  Upon return, passengers can find their cars using the same digital ticket. A simple scan of the QR code will indicate details of the car and help the passenger right from collecting the key, to directing and identifying their car.

Impact of the New Approach

This new approach is a pioneering attempt by the airport and one which is expected to revolutionize parking experiences throughout Scotland according to Alec Hodgson, the Head of Digital and Parking at the Edinburgh Airport. This will improve the availability as well as affordability of parking at the airport. The system is a self-service system and thus reduces the cost of labor of operating such a system. As a result, the price of parking will drop and increase the affordability for passengers. Passengers will also witness an increase in the availability of parking spaces due to the more efficient system and the addition of the proposed 5000 new parking spaces.

Going forward, this means that a number of airports across the world will start looking at smart parking systems to improve parking experiences offered to their own passengers since they translate to the efficient and optimized operation of airport facilities.

Although the implementation of such a system will require a significant investment in necessary technologies, in the long-run the benefits appear to far outweigh the costs. It would come as no surprise if airports and countries around the world slowly began to adopt these new technologies to improve commuting experiences for commuters world over. With the rapid increase in the number of cars plying on roads in various cities today, it appears that the change is not only possible but also likely and imminent, set to revolutionize parking across the globe.