Its day three of the show and I’m back at the hotel and thought I might fill you in on some of the happenings.
I didn’t see a lot of new technology, although everyone is talking like the fact that they are using IP for their communications is something new. Its not, and according to Blake Lauffer, of T2, is rapidly becoming the standard for our types of technologies.
Tom Rollo and Keith Lynch over at Skidata did fill me in on Near Field Communications — the ability of one device to pass a bit of data to another by simply being close to it (and being active, of course). consider that your cell phone holds three parking permits that have been downloaded from your nearest garage. You then take your phone and hold it next to your wife’s and with the touch of a button hers now has the permit. You then can go to the garage and by holding your phone next to the entry reader, the data is transmitted and you are allowed in. Great stuff
There were on street multispace machines in virtually every booth. They are of every shape, color and size. I heard that Misco, a South Korean firm, has signed to supply P and D machines to Federal APD.
Oh in their booth, I met a couple of other old friends, Tom Lucas of Dominion Self Park in Canada and Glen Holdsworth of the TTM group in Australia. Here they are with Clara Jeong from Misco. That’s Tom on the Left.
As you know, you can click on the image to increase the size.
I spent a wonderful hour with a group from China who are planning and exhibition this fall to bring parking and technology folks to Shanghai — seems that the city is hosting the 2010 world exposition that will bring 30,000,000 visitors to the area and exacerbate the already terrible parking problem there. They figure that if they hold an exhibition this year and invite a lot of parking experts, perhaps they can find folks who are willing to step up and give them a hand. Sounds to me like a great opportunity. Any takers out there?
I heard the S and B and Skidata Parties last night were very different. Scheidt and Bachmann did its traditional drinks and dinner at a restaurant nearby the exhibit hall. A good time was had by all. However competitor Skidata held its event at a local restaurant where one person told me the drinks were served in the basement where the walls were padded and there were chains and handcuffs hanging from it. Company officers were diving off the stage into the audience. I didn’t think there was that much difference between Austrians and Germans, but who knows.
Automaten Technik Baumann founder, Wolfgang Bauman told me about the famous SEVEN star hotel in Dubai — a picture of it is below with one of Automaten’s recently installed P and D machines. This hotel’s smallest room is 200 square meters, that’s nearly 2,000 square feet — When Wolfgang checked in, he had his wife and children, and of course couldn’t use the smallest suite, that was for two people only…Note the orange cover around the P and D machine below — its a cover that allows air to circulate between it and the outer skin of the machine to keep it cool. The temperatures in these machines can get up to 175 degrees in the daytime.
I’m tired and hungry, but I will give you one more tidbit. I spent some time with Fred Mitschele of Photo Violation Technology. They have a new meters that does everything but clamp on the cuffs. It actually issues the violation for cars that have overparked and though an great system of cameras and sensors takes a picture of the offending vehicle. More about it in PT, however my spin is on the poster in the background of the pix of Fred and one of his employees and his meter…
Seems CSI Miami is using the meter in its April 10 episode to solve a crime…pretty neat, huh…
I have tons of business cards and have seen Ed Decarvelo, Tom Wunk, Klaus Gindl, Dave Witts, Amit Kedem, Ian Betts, Richard Zhou, Robert Caplin, Mangus Rehn, Peter Cabral, Arturo Garza, Mark CC Tu, Ken Greenwood, Sebas Van den Ende, Dori Teich, well, the list is endless. Everyone from all over the world comes to Amsterdam for Intertraffic.
I report some more tomorrow
J
