How to automate and control access to the communal car park

The issue of communal parking

In a residents’ association, communal parking – whether in a garage or on the ground level – is one of the areas most frequently used by residents. They usually need to use their vehicles, which requires accessing the area, finding their parking space, and entering and exiting as easily as possible.

However, as it is a public and external point of entry to the estate, security measures are required to restrict access to residents who have a parking space. Or to external visitors who may occasionally use a resident’s space for a valid reason.

It is also the case that, on many occasions, the owners of some of the parking spaces are not residents of the same estate, but have purchased their parking space solely as a service to be able to leave their vehicle there, either due to its proximity to their home, work or similar.

But turning to the matter at hand, controlling access to this communal car park is a necessary measure that is usually resolved by installing a motorised access gate and providing residents with radio-frequency remote controls.

Although this solution is usually the most common found in a residential community, it has some drawbacks:

• There is no access log: The gate opens when a request is made via one of the remote controls, and this instruction usually goes directly to the gate motor; there is no additional control over who accesses the car park and when, via a log that can be consulted if necessary.
• Remote controls can be easily duplicated: there are many different ways to make a copy of a remote control, and there are also many companies where, using one of the existing remote controls, they can duplicate it and create additional remote controls for you.
• There is no control over vehicles: anyone with a remote control can access the car park, regardless of the vehicle they are driving. In other words, we can only control who has a remote control, but never the vehicle they use to gain access.
• There is no control over the direction: that is to say, the gate opens upon receiving the instruction, but we do not know whether it is for exiting or entering the car park. We cannot know at any given moment how many vehicles are in the car park or how many spaces are free. This is what is known in the trade as an anti-passback system.
• Access can be multiple: when someone opens the gate, there may be another vehicle right behind them that enters or exits without having to identify itself, simply taking advantage of the time the gate is open.
• We cannot grant access to third parties: if, for example, we need a vehicle from a service company working on our property to gain access, the only way is to provide them with the remote control, either by being present at the required time or by temporarily handing the remote over to that third party.
• It is not possible to automate access: in other words, we always need to press the remote control (or make a phone call, which is sometimes another solution used) for the gate to open. Action on our part is required to open the gate.
• We cannot restrict access based on the number of parking spaces: we know that in many estates, residents often use spaces that do not belong to them because they are usually unoccupied. However, this will not always be the case, so we should restrict access according to each resident’s allocated spaces.
• There is no control whatsoever over the remote controls: it happens that residents cease to be residents and the remote controls are not returned. That residents make copies and do not inform anyone. In short, there comes a point when it is impossible to know which remote controls exist and who has them.

Suffice it to say that many estates may find all these drawbacks acceptable, but it is also true that if you want more comprehensive access control that allows for a degree of automation, the solutions currently in use do not allow for this.

Let’s improve car park access control

From our point of view, an optimal solution in terms of car park access security would be as follows:

Physical identification devices are removed. In the example we have been using, we would remove the radio-frequency transponders and replace them with the device we all carry with us today: the mobile phone.

We would also modify the entrance gate, preventing it from allowing multiple entries, for example by installing barriers at the front and/or rear that only permit one vehicle to enter per identification.

Finally, we would use an app to identify ourselves when accessing the car park. This app must allow for entry/exit logging, real-time monitoring of parking spaces (i.e. knowing at all times which spaces are free or occupied) and self-management of access, either by allowing residents to specify vehicle registration numbers or by enabling remote opening or access for third parties.

In this way, we eliminate almost all the drawbacks described above and move to a more secure access control system, where each owner can be provided with a digital key to access the car park, all entries are recorded so that the use of the car park can be monitored in real time, and finally, the entire access solution is integrated into the same app used by the Residents’ Association for its management and communication.

This is the solution we propose at Onzane, which involves residents using our Onzane app to control access to the communal car park in an integrated, digital and logged manner.

Let’s automate car park access control

But of course, there is one area where our security in car park access control may be compromised, and that is precisely in vehicle control. In other words, with the solution proposed in the previous point, we will manage to eliminate the drawbacks described, but we do not manage to equip the access system with control over the vehicle entering, but rather over the person. We continue to rely on the driver of the entering vehicle for identification, but we do not know which vehicle is entering, or even whether it is a car or a motorbike. Or, for example, if a resident has several spaces in the communal car park, which one they will use to park their vehicle.

However, this problem also has a solution, and besides resolving it with additional technology, we can even introduce a feature we did not have previously: automated access. This means the neighbour does not even have to use their mobile phone to identify themselves; simply by arriving at the entrance (or exit), access is granted or denied based on which vehicle is attempting to enter.

For this step, we need to add additional technology that allows us to automatically identify which vehicle is attempting to enter or exit, so that we can associate it with a specific parking space and a specific resident. This technology is based on automatic number plate recognition cameras. In other words, we will need to install number plate recognition cameras at both the entrance and the exit, and connect them to our system so that we can automatically grant access depending on the vehicle requesting it.

Our Onzane app allows each resident, for each of their own parking spaces, to independently define the number plate of one or more vehicles (this is configurable). Simply by entering the number plate of the vehicle to be granted access, the system will identify the owner and determine whether the space is already occupied or not, and finally grant access to the car park. And all this without the resident having to do anything other than drive their vehicle up to the car park entrance.