The Smart Parking system of the Kozhikode Corporation, which was launched on Saturday, will be ready for implementation within a month.
Deputy Mayor Musafir Ahamed said though the mobile application that enables booking of parking space from afar was yet to be ready, the manual system was already in place.
The tender for a mobile application for Smart Parking will be floated in a few days, and it is expected to be ready in a month. Meanwhile, markings are being made on roadsides by the Corporation’s engineering wing to enable systematic parking of all kinds of vehicles.
The Corporation is implementing the Smart Parking system in association with the traffic police as a sustainable solution to the parking woes of the city. The project was designed based on a study report of the traffic police.
The District Police Chief (Kozhikode City) had approached the Mayor with the report, combined with another project report by a start-up named Qcopy. The Mayor in turn discussed the matter with various departments. A detailed report on spaces on roadsides where vehicles could be parked without disrupting traffic was prepared with the help of the traffic police. Thus, the first phase of the project to convert Kozhikode into a parking-friendly city was readied. The project was approved by the Corporation council on November 19 last year and was launched on Saturday by Minister for Public Works and Tourism P.A. Mohamed Riyas at the launch of the first anniversary celebrations of the corporation council.
Under the project, those travelling to the city can book parking space in advance through a mobile application. The space will be vacant for a specific period of time. The police have already mapped every road of the city and charted the parking spaces available.
There are parking bays separately for cars, motorbikes, vehicles of disabled people, and buses. There will be drop-off points and emergency/police bays in select locations on most roads. Maximum parking space is available on North Beach and near the Corporation office, while South Beach, Meenchanda-Areekkad Road, Pottammal-Arayidathupalam Toad, and Pavamani Road too have enough parking bays. However, there are very few bays available at Pottammal Junction and Rajaji Road, which have shortage of space for parking.
The Corporation has already set aside ₹10 lakh to set up parking spaces on wider roads.
