Bonn / Germany

Parking Guidance System for Germany's former capital

The federal city of Bonn, with a history of almost 2000 years, is one of the twenty largest cities in Germany with a population of approximately 330,000. Capital of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1990, Bonn is now home to 20 United Nations organizations and major companies such as Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom. Bonn is also world-famous as the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven.

As the main center of the Rhineland metropolitan region and an important center of science, Bonn faces a high volume of commuters and visitors. The location of Bonn situated on both sides of the Rhine intensifies the traffic situation, especially on the three bridges crossing the Rhine. The city of Bonn was therefore looking for a guidance system that would not only reduce parking search traffic, but also provide traffic information and guidance.

SWARCO's solution

Bonn awarded SWARCO the contract for the installation of a new parking and traffic guidance system in June 2020. In order to be able to react flexibly to the traffic situation, the system now includes 32 dynamic parking guidance signs, all of which are full-graphic, full-color LED matrix displays to provide real time overview of the parking situation. In addition to displaying the current parking situation, the displays are also used to indicate traffic incidents, the environmental situation or rescue operations.

Parking data acquisition

The parking garages in the inner city area are operated by Bonner City Parkraum. The parking guidance system gathers the occupancy data from their central server. The parking garages of the World Conference Center Bonn and the parking garages located in the Beuel district of the city also report their occupancy data to the parking guidance computer via REST API.

Parking guidance displays

Within the city area, 32 full-graphic, full-color LED matrix displays from SWARCO Futurit have been installed. The displays have an LED matrix with 192 pixels in width, and 72, 104 or 136 pixels in height with a pixel pitch of 12 mm. They comply with the highest classes of EN12966-1 (L3(*)-R3-B7-C2) and offer maximum flexibility for changing telematics applications (parking guidance system, traffic information and warning, etc.). The parking guidance displays are connected to the parking guidance computer via network (fiber optic cable or mobile radio 4G/LTE). The dynamic displays are complemented by 18 static parking guidance signs for route guidance in the city center area.