Australian Airports Getting High Tech Parking (But Will It Work?)

The Australian reports on the installation of what they’re calling high-tech sensors at Canberra and Brisbane airports that’ll allow the same kinds of parking automation you find in the average shopping centre. If it’s anything like my local shopping centre, expect chaos.

The systems are from a company called Park Asisst, and are being rolled out at both a short-term car park and a long-term park at Brisbane’s domestic airport, as well as at two car parks at Canberra airport. The systems use an overhead camera to pinpoint empty car parking spaces as and when they become available, identifying them by colour to make it (theoretically) easier to spot empty parks more quickly. There’s also a level of smartphone automation available via an iOS/Android app, which in theory can help you find your car in the carpark. Although after it was found that the URLs for each car were accessible online to anybody with no security via a rather major flaw, the shopping centres that already employ the technology stepped back from it; it’s not clear if the airport installations will offer it or not.

I’m highly skeptical, and this isn’t just my natural cynicism talking. My local Westfield is one of the sites that uses the Park Assist technology to assist drivers, and if the airports are anything like that, expect chaos. I’ve seen empty sites pegged as full, full sites pegged as empty and the entryway sign happily display that there are hundreds of available parks when there are none at all. Then again, for me this is in one sense this is a furphy; I rarely if ever drive out to the airport; as Lifehacker notes airport parking can be very expensive ,so it’s both cheaper and a whole lot less stress inducing to take public transport. [The Australian]
Image: I’m George