Chandigarh municipal corporation plans new smart parking solution with revised rates and integrated software

Chandigarh: The municipal corporation is set to introduce a software solution integrated with POS machines to collect accurate data on vehicles' presence, stay, and duration at the exit point in each paid parking lot. The civic body authority will request the Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC) to provide a software solution integrated with POS machines for this purpose.Despite rejection by the general house last time, the authority finalised the revised hourly paid parking rates for inclusion in the fresh RFP document of the Smart Parking Solution on the PPP model. The agenda item in this regard is scheduled for discussion in the monthly general house meeting on Wednesday.The agenda item states, "An agenda regarding approval of the Smart Parking Solution of 87 paid parking sites was placed before the general house of MC, held on March 25, and after deliberation, the house passed the resolution and scrapped the existing RFP to float a fresh RFP for the Smart Parking Solution within three months. Accordingly, a meeting of committee members was convened on April 22, for the preparation of the RFP of the Smart Parking Solution on the PPP model. The committee members discussed various points like smart features to be included in the RFP document, GST, stamp duty, baseline revenue, free parking list, rates of parking, duration, zone or single, hours of operation, illustration of sharing of revenue to be mentioned in the RFP, data protection, theft cases."The agenda also states that the committee members recommended that to facilitate the preparation of the RFP and estimation of baseline revenue, a mechanism for capturing data on the duration of vehicle stay in the parking lot is required. It was also decided that the parking fee should be collected at the entry point of each paid parking area as per the existing parking fee. Also, at the exit point, vehicle data may be recorded through POS machines to capture information on the duration of stay."For the collection of data, the SPIC may be requested to provide the software integrated with POS machines. This software will support the collection of accurate data on vehicle stay duration in each paid parking lot, and also help to prepare the RFP of the Smart Parking Solution on the PPP model," the agenda states.Proposed parking fee ratesThe committee members also discussed the revised parking rates. Under the revised charges for four-wheelers, like previous times, the MC has kept the first 15 minutes free. From 16 minutes to four hours, a proposal of Rs 20 has been finalised, which will be Rs 25 from four to eight hours and Rs 30 after eight hours. The charges for two-wheelers are proposed at Rs 10, 15, and 20, respectively. Like previous times, the charges are higher for Elante, Piccadilly, and Fun Republic paid parking lots. The request for proposal (RFP) for the parking will come later. The agenda states that since the preparation of a fresh RFP for the Smart Parking Solution is under consideration, the revised parking rates need to be approved by the general house for inclusion in the fresh RFP document for the Smart Parking Solution, which is still in progress.