- Public Sector
- Apps for customers, Customer Service
Sustainable parking management in Amsterdam
Parking management in Amsterdam is carried out by Egis Parking Services. It is already a big job to process over 550,000 parking tickets annually.
Parking in Amsterdam is always a challenge for visitors and residents. Egis Parking Service, the company responsible for parking management in Amsterdam, addresses these challenges with innovative solutions, such as using scanning cars for parking controls, automating the process for handling objections to parking fines and making different types of visitor permits available.
Handling appeals on fines 2 times faster
Every year, 10% of the 900.000 parking fines issued in Amsterdam are objected to. Despite parking checks being carried out innovatively with scanning cars, handling objections still lagged behind; this was a manual exercise. We helped Egis automate this process in 2018: from investigation to the legal ruling and handling of the objection.
Integration of separate systems improves efficiency
All objections require legal processing. An investigation takes place first, followed by a ruling. There was an overly complex investigation process, where data such as photos, permits and payments had to be collected from different systems. To make the process more efficient, all these separate systems were integrated into one new system. This leads to significant efficiency improvements.
Right person in the right place
Some objections are more complicated than others. As a result, objections were still sometimes left for too long. That had to change. In the new system, we made sure that objections are assigned to an employee with the right level of legal knowledge and experience.
Automated handling process
To keep the process as simple as possible, we have ensured that part of the objections are now handled fully automatically. Based on various criteria, the outcome of the objection is predicted and compiled into a legal ruling. The ruling is composed of various ‘building blocks’ to ensure that all rulings are consistent in quality. With this system, the ruling only needs to be checked before sending. Employees no longer have to search different systems for the required information, as all data is at their fingertips.
“The solution has enabled us to speed up our handling process by a factor of 2. In addition, we make fewer errors.”
Improved parking permit app launched
Amsterdam has several types of parking permits that work with a balance and a start-stop system. Examples include the visitor permit, disabled permits and carer’s permits. The application was due for replacement and the new system needed to be much more user-friendly. In a lead time of 8 months, the new system was designed, built, tested and on 4 December 2022, the City of Amsterdam and Egis Parking Services launched a new application that processes thousands of parking sessions per day for 7 different permit types.
Sustainable technological solution
The needs of users have been identified together with the Municipality of Amsterdam. Based on these requirements, the optimal architecture for the application was examined. This consists of a Mendix back-end and management environment that is used by functional management and support employees of the Municipality of Amsterdam.
The customer interface is a Single Page Application based on headless technology that integrates seamlessly with the Mendix back-end. This results in a scalable and flexible application suitable for any device.
“My work has become a lot more pleasant: a lot less cutting and pasting and the software has a natural workflow.”
The requirements for this application
- Support for 7 different types of permits;
- Expandable with new types of permits;
- Comply with WCAG 2.1 accessibility guidelines;
- Corporate identity of the municipality of Amsterdam;
- Responsive design;
- Link with an Interactive Voice Response system (start and stop parking by calling);
- Link with the NPR (National Parking Register);
- Top up balances with iDeal;
- Automatic synchronisation of permit holders for adding new permit holders and removing old ones
Complex migration
The migration process was very complex, with 150,000 permit holders, permits and millions of historical parking sessions that had to be migrated within a fixed timeframe. To ensure the completeness of the data, several simulations have been carried out and checks built in. The go-live took place on December 4, with the total migration taking 14 hours. During each step of the process, the team validated whether the data was complete. To prevent data loss, the old application was unavailable during the migration.
The result on the first day after go live: More than 7,000 successful parking sessions in Amsterdam.
