Metro Vancouver Road Infrastructure Discussion

[KPELLY]

Calgary's Chinook centre mall has those parking stall lights. When they worked they were awesome, but they've had a lot of issues with them. The first few times I went there they seemed to work fine, Every time I have gone back less and less of the lights worked properly and often they will show the spot as available when there will actually have a car there. Recently they have turned them all off. I believe the company they used was called parkassist. Hopefully they have some sort of warranty on them.

[rsxstock]

less time spent finding parking, more on gambling

[MIPS]

I was curious if the weather has anything to do with that buggyness, sure enough it does.

"For various reasons – both somewhat environmental, somewhat [due to]

infrastructure – it's not working to our standard," he said.

The cameras' sensors are confused by cars covered by snow, as well as the fog created when cars come in from the cold.

"The other issue is humidity," he said. "When it was -30 C outside and you drive into a deck … your car fogs up. These sensors were not designed to pick that up. They've had to make software changes."

-Source

Vegas has a stable enough climate that those problems would never pop up often enough.

[moosejaw]

Originally Posted by Procrastinational

Would prevent people from aimlessly circling around the parkade searching for a spot, and cut down on emissions. Nice Why aren't these everywhere? I wonder how much it is to retrofit...

the idea behind this is to have people spend less time searching for spots and spend more time for slot machines. These parking systems are known for malfunctioning and require constant maintenance.

Unless your a casino rolling inthe dough. I dont see many developers paying for this kind of infrastructure.

[officedweller]

It was at both the underground lot of the Cosmopolitan Hotel Casino and at above-ground parkade of the Las Vegas Premium Outlet Mall (North).

[libtard]

Those parking lot stall lights are much too progressive for Vancouver. Maybe 10 years and we'll see something like that

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by MIPS

I was curious if the weather has anything to do with that buggyness, sure enough it does.


-Source

Vegas has a stable enough climate that those problems would never pop up often enough.

Well since we have ICBC as a monopoly they can stick a RFID chip in every license plate, for people from out of province they can provide a vending machine with a temporary RFID chip sticker. There are only 25 entrances/exists to BC, and when I say 25 I include the Port Angeles ferries and every road in/out of BC. RFID chips are cheap. They can allow for data collection regarding traffic patterns and such, data you could never dream of otherwise. Third parties can develop products such as these parking lights, cities can implement products as well, such as zeroing out a parking meter as soon as a car leaves and starting the time as soon as a car arrives, etc. (just ideas). They would be cheaper and 99.9% efficient. Once the RFID chips are fully rolled out anyone without one (specifically tourists) get fined, 3 fines yo can get towed. Hopefully compliance for out of province visitors would be high.

Issue, privacy.

Well its just a idea, cheap RFID chips like you would put on pallets are cheap and can be read from a good 10 meters, no battery required. Its much easier to implement then our fare gates, and ofcoure much cheaper thanks to ICBC. The only hard part is gettign compliance from out of province visitors, BUT like I said there are only 25 ins/outs of the province so that obviously helps.

Just a idea.

[red-paladin]

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by MIPS

I was curious if the weather has anything to do with that buggyness, sure enough it does.

They use CAMERAS to detect the cars? Why not just use inductive loops like they do for traffic lights? Those would be pretty foolproof, I'd expect.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

They use CAMERAS to detect the cars? Why not just use inductive loops like they do for traffic lights? Those would be pretty foolproof, I'd expect.

i honestly thought that they would have worked like traffic lights. i thought it was odd they would use a camera.

[spm2013]

....

[officedweller]

The ones in Vegas were much smaller than those ParkAssist ones.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by spm2013

Imaging trying to setup 2000 induction loops in a parking garage.

Shouldn't be a big deal if you're building from scratch. A loop is cheap, simple and foolproof compared to a camera.

Your point is well taken for retrofits, though.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Shouldn't be a big deal if you're building from scratch. A loop is cheap, simple and foolproof compared to a camera.

Your point is well taken for retrofits, though.

Seems like it would be cheaper to just have LED/Laser sensors above/in front the parking stall and a reflective "mark" in the stall to see if the stall is occupied. That of course only works for Parking.

Most digital camera's pick up infrared, and could pick up the engine/brake heat of "new occupant." If they use cameras for each parking stall, it's likely to scan plates to check for payment.

Though a much more cheaper option is to put RFID/NFC tags into the "license plate renewal" sticker at renewal time. This however would require peeling off the previous sticker every year, which most people don't do. Also the problem of no standard. Alternatives include License plate frames or just plain old magnets in the way a N or L are attached.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Kisai

Seems like it would be cheaper to just have LED/Laser sensors above/in front the parking stall and a reflective "mark" in the stall to see if the stall is occupied. That of course only works for Parking.

Optical sensors are subject to dirt problems, and require walls or some kind of structure on either side of the stall which in turn means you need wider stall widths because you can't share the margin space of one stall with the adjacent stall in order to allow for car doors to open.

[Pinion]

Drove on the Keith road extension today, it's very nice, but super weird going onto Hwy 1 eastbound now. You basically have to do a U-turn - the image below makes it look more of a right angle than it is. Hopefully they fix that when they upgrade the interchange.


http://www.dnv.org/article.asp?a=5642

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by KPELLY

Calgary's Chinook centre mall has those parking stall lights. When they worked they were awesome, but they've had a lot of issues with them. The first few times I went there they seemed to work fine, Every time I have gone back less and less of the lights worked properly and often they will show the spot as available when there will actually have a car there. Recently they have turned them all off. I believe the company they used was called parkassist. Hopefully they have some sort of warranty on them.

I saw those lights in the Philippines and they were pretty interesting. Didn't realize they're a common thing

[officedweller]

From the Vancouver Courier:

Burrard Bridge report shows need for repairs
City of Vancouver refused to make report public

Bob Mackin / Vancouver Courier
November 10, 2014 04:08 PM

While city council spent $12 million on the Point Grey-Cornwall bike lane and the Burrard Bridge’s south intersection, city hall hid engineers’ reports that urged major repairs to the decaying 82-year-old span.

The 2011 and 2012 reports, mostly by Associated Engineering, were finally released to the Courier Oct. 27 after a two-year battle. They recommended the city spend $9 million to $12.22 million on coating, $4.4 million to replace the pedestrian fence, $3.4 million to widen the roadway and $2.5 million to widen the sidewalks.

The reports also recommended a major overhaul to the decaying concrete deck, which carries 54,000 vehicles daily. By comparison, an average 1,500 cyclists a day plied the new bike lane last June.

...

- See more at: http://www.vancourier.com/vancouver-....9OfodPKI.dpuf

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by officedweller

From the Vancouver Courier:

Much of the remediation work is subject to the capital spending plan which is before the voters on November 15. The bike lane and intersection work that's already been completed was part of the previous capital plan.

[officedweller]

I think that's the point - the 2011 and 2012 reports could have been in a previous capital plan, but wasn't.