PARKING TECHNOLOGY FROM APT SKIDATA HELPS VIRGIN TRAINS
IMPROVE THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Future-proof parking technology from APT Skidata is playing a central role in a £90 million investment programme by Virgin Trains to modernise and expand the parking infrastructure at stations on the west coast main line.
More than a dozen stations, starting with Birmingham International, are now in the process or have completed upgrading out-of-date and unreliable systems with the very latest payment equipment and integrated barrier technology from APT Skidata's proven APT 460 series.
The new technology has been chosen for its ability to evolve with Virgin Trains' future needs, including the potential to accept SMS or barcode ‘tickets' displayed on a user's mobile phone, and integrate with the latest automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems favoured by the police. There is also the ability to network all of the station car parks such that they can be managed and controlled from a single location.
The decision to partner with APT Skidata comes as Virgin Trains looks to fulfil the obligations of the Franchise Agreement to increase parking capacity at all of its main line stations. As Mike Bones, Project Manager for Virgin Trains explains: “To grow the number of passengers using our service and entice more people onto the railways we need to expand parking capacity accordingly.
“Since January 2009 we have increased the frequency of services by 32%, and are in the process of procuring additional Pendolino vehicles to increase capacity, so additional parking was essential.”
Network Rail was commissioned to manage the delivery of the physical asset, working exclusively with APT Skidata as the preferred technology. APT Skidata in turn has had to work alongside various contractors chosen for each project as Mike continues:
“Our Property Team undertook extensive evaluation of the technologies available before deciding upon APT Skidata,” he says. “We needed a technology that was proven, reliable, easy to use and maintain, and that would be convenient for our customers. We also wanted a technology that delivered not just what we wanted today, but that would also help us meet the demands of the future.”
Five locations were prioritised in the first phase as the most urgent in need of renovation: Birmingham International, Preston, Crewe, Wolverhampton and Coventry. Outdated Pay-on-foot machines were immediately replaced with the APT Skidata technology. New parking technology is also being installed in Runcorn, Rugby, Stafford, Wigan, Carlisle, Lancaster and Stoke.
As well as upgrading existing parking space, additional multi-storey car parks have been identified for the seven largest stations. All meet the industry ‘Park Mark' standard, vetted by the police as providing the highest standards of safety and security for vehicles and passengers alike. At one station, Crewe, APT Skidata provided not just the technology, but also all of the civil works as a main contractor.
A key factor in APT Skidata's appointment was the technology's future capability: “future-proofing was central to our decision making,” Mike confirms. “At the moment we use only a small percentage of the system's total functionality, and there is so much more we can do, especially in terms of management information (MI) which can be delivered in whichever way we choose.
“The technology enables us to build up a detailed picture of car park usage, and predict demand in the future more accurately. We are able to measure the effectiveness of specific initiatives, for example lower cost tickets at weekends, and will have the ability, ultimately, to have total visibility of all of our car parks from one central location.”
Indeed the vision is for a control room from which all of Virgin Trains' stations can be managed, not just the parking but also CCTV, ticketing, train announcements, monitoring of platforms etc. “It would be desirable,” Mike adds, “but a major undertaking.”
At the moment it is still early days in the relationship between Virgin Trains and APT Skidata, but Mike has been impressed with his experience to date: “our industry is traditionally very slow to embrace new technology, but APT Skidata's systems have the ability to integrate with other existing technologies that make it very attractive to us,” he says.
He also believes it results in a happier customer: “The passenger's journey starts and ends with the car park,” he concludes, “and so we have to make that experience as easy, convenient and comfortable as possible.”
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