Detect and avoid parking violation in EV charging bays

Circontrol’s EV charging points and Efficient Parking Platform allows a complete management of EV chargers installed in car parks

Finding an EV charger in a car park is more common every day, but they are still pretty new and, as it happens with every innovation, it requires some time and tools for people to adapt. The first challenge people may face is finding an EV charger and know it is available. Although, the most important problem is the inadequate use of EV parking bays. Sometimes these bays are occupied by EVs that are not charging or by combustion engine vehicles who don’t even need a charger. This last situation is called ICEing which comes from the abbreviation of Internal Combustion Engine. Finding the EV charger occupied may cause an important problem for an EV driver, it would be equivalent to find the pump blocked in a petrol station for an ICE driver. 

One way to solve these problems is to integrate EV chargers with car park management solution. Circontrol, besides its ten years of experience manufacturing EV charging stations, has 16 years of experience designing solutions for the Efficient Parking. These two products integrated may help car park operators and drivers to optimize their experience using EV chargers installed in car parks. 

Locating a free charger

The first thing an EV drivers needs is knowing that there is a functional and available EV charger in the car park and, once inside the car park, he should find it quickly. To achieve this is important to visually indicate the number of bays, its availability and guide the EV driver to the EV charging bay with displays. In the parking bay you can also install a sensor that visually indicates the presence and availability of the charger by changing its colour when it’s occupied. All these allows to optimize the traffic in the car park increasing users’ satisfaction. By installing an EccuPark controller you can also get a report of EV charger’s usage and an automatic notification if there is an error. 

Detect parking violation 

Arriving at the car park with just a little battery hoping to find an EV charger and find it occupied for an EV that’s not charging or even an ICE car may be an important problem for the EV driver. But this also may be a problem for car park operators, because it may lower customers’ satisfaction and it can also reduce their revenues if the user has to pay to charge. 

Integrating EV chargers and car park management solutions can also help facing parking violation. Installing an Eccupark controller allows if there’s a car parked in an EV charging bay that’s not using the EV charger. When it happens, it sends an alarm notification allowing to manage the infraction. Besides, in the case of having a Find Your Car solution that provides car-finding solutions based on cameras within each parking bay, the car park operator may create a whitelist of cars that are authorized to charge in EV bays and create an alarm if any other car is detected. Nevertheless, this is only an option for subscribers, not for eventual users.