SWARCO UK & Ireland, the UK’s leading intelligent traffic solution and technology business, has installed a new parking guidance system for Stroud District Council to help deliver an improved parking experience at the Brunel Mall multi-storey car park.

The main issue the council faced was coordinating traffic flow management. Drivers were struggling to find available parking spaces, particularly during peak times, causing unwanted congestion and a somewhat chaotic parking experience. The council needed a highly efficient and cost-effective approach to parking management, and turned to SWARCO to provide the solution.

Following a survey of the site, SWARCO designed and delivered a holistic solution that encompasses both hardware and management software to meet the needs of the council. SWARCO has installed a parking guidance Variable Messaging Sign (VMS) to display clear space availability arrows, featuring the number of free spaces in green or displaying ‘full’ in red. Its flexibility is such that can be utilised for multiple purposes including providing parking and traffic flow information. Intelligent data is sent to the sign by a series of integrated car park counters and Inductive Loops that record all vehicles entering and exiting the car park. this means that the data and status of the car parks are presented in real time via SWARCO’s cloud-based remote management system, enabling the council to better understand and manage parking availability, and traffic flow.