WPS, the parking systems and management specialist, has successfully installed its ParkAdvance™ Pay-on-Foot parking technology at a major Heathrow Airport hotel near Terminal 4.
The system is being used to control access at the hotel’s guest car park (comprising more than 200 parking spaces) and its two staff car parks, and accommodates ‘traditional’ payments (by visitors at pay station), web enabled validation (at the hotel’s reception, concierge desk, restaurant and gym) and employee ID cards. The terminals utilise contactless payment technology, while the barriers are used in conjunction with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to enable employees to quickly enter the main car park before reaching the staff car park.
The hotel attracts both leisure and corporate guests, staying from 30 minutes to any number of weeks, and the hotel wanted the parking experience to be positive: “We sought an intuitive, self-service payment system combined with automatic barriers that would provide guests with a modern, hassle-free experience reflecting the quality of our brand,” a hotel spokesperson said.
“In what was a competitive tender, ParkAdvance was chosen on the basis of the system’s renowned reliability, the extensive expertise of the WPS engineering and installation team, and the company’s attractive aftersales proposition.”
The fully IP-based architecture of ParkAdvance means the system is future proof, with the possibility of adding further functionality as and when it is needed. The system’s flexible reporting functions have been another useful addition, with reports providing immediate access to revenue information and how many spaces are available at any time.
Simon Jarvis, Managing Director at WPS in the UK, says ParkAdvance is very well suited to hotels and other environments where high levels of customer satisfaction are essential:
“Our technology supports the hotel’s desire to deliver the very best customer experience. It has also enabled hotel management to readily achieve their aim of bringing the parking provision in house, and to see their car park as an opportunity to generate further revenues that can be invested in the estate.”
