Internet of Things

Have you ever wondered that what you spend over 10 minutes fi nding a parking spot every

time when you visit a place? This means that you waste more than 240 hours every year, more

importantly over 700 days in your entire life. When you search for a parking spot, you also waste

fuel and create pollution for the city.

Located in the region of Occitanie, Montpellier is a small French city with over 270,000

inhabitants. Like every other major city, Montpellier also su ers from tra c jams and a scar-

city of free parking spots. This city has been the pioneer in adopting smart city projects in its

vicinity. Thus, nowadays the city is moving towards larger IoT deployments. The Montpellier

Mediterranean Metropolis is responsible for promoting such IoT projects. The main credit does

to their commitment to “Open Data” solutions to improve the services provided to its citizens.

The famous French company Synox with its 10-year experience has been sharing its

knowledge and expertise to Montpellier Mediterranean Metropolis to develop new urban solu-

tions for parking. Synox has been involved in developing smart cities projects since its very

inception. The company aims to contribute to the upliftment of urban services. The company

has also won a public tender of the Montpellier Mediterranean Metropolis. This gave Synox the

chance to contribute to various ongoing projects like start-ups, universities, and laboratories.

The company mainly invests in smart cities; however, they have also started a private network

on a special communication protocol.

The Montpellier shopping centre is a very congested place. Over thousands of people

visit every to shop at the shopping centre. Sadly, the shopping centre has very limited parking

spaces. Plus, the crowd often results in annoying tra c jams. Synox had the goal to make the

tra c more fl uid and improve the parking service near the shopping centre and the town hall.

The company installed twenty smart parking nodes in two di erent areas of the city. Six sensors

surround the town hall, while the rest are placed on the nearby Marianne district.

The sensors were deployed just over the roadways on the parking sensors with the aim

to relieve congestion. Furthermore, the company has planned to expand the network of these

sensors throughout the other territories of the metropolis. These sensors are also equipped

with temperature sensors to record the temperature of the roads, which is used by the author-

ities to take measures in the presence of ice on the roads. The entire Smart Parking Sensor

Network is connected to the Metropolis’s private network which has been deployed by Synox.

The data management tab helps the authorities to get real-time data and indicators the usage of

car parking slots. This naturally helps to minimize the parking search time and tra c conges-

tions. Being a part of the “Open Data” initiative, now the citizens have access to more informa-

tion and online data.

Unlike just being a smart parking system, the smart parking project does a lot more for

the citizens of Montpellier. The project helps in the development of the city’s infrastructure by

solving the problem of congestion and parking.

CASE STUDY 1

SMART PARKING SYSTEM IN MONTPELLIER

TO MANAGE TRAFFIC JAMS

Chapter 10 Data Analytics and Machine Learning for IoT 265

Internet_of_Things_CH10_pp249-270.indd 265 9/3/2019 10:15:58 AM