Kirkland launches smart parking initiative to improve urban mobility

Waterloo, Canada (Urban Transport News): The eleven-x, a leading IoT and Smart City technology company specializing in accurate, real-time stall occupancy monitoring, today announced it has been selected by the City of Kirkland, Washington to deploy the company’s award-winning eXactpark™ Smart Parking Solution in the city’s busy downtown area. This partnership aligns with Kirkland’s Smart Cities Initiative which aims to leverage innovative solutions to increase operational efficiency, share information with the public, deliver enhanced services and effectively manage resources to improve the community’s quality of life. Through eleven-x’s comprehensive eXactpark parking monitoring sensor and software solution, the City of Kirkland aims to gain an accurate understanding of parking usage in the downtown area to develop informed, community-centric policies.

Kirkland is a picturesque city located on the eastern shore of Lake Washington. The downtown area of the city, known for its waterfront access to Lake Washington, has experienced increasing traffic volumes and greater demand for parking in recent years. Limited availability of premium parking, such as free on-street parking and low-cost $1 per hour parking in two of the city-owned lots, has resulted in difficulties for residents, employees, and visitors seeking parking options. In response to these challenges, the City is taking a proactive approach to implementing measures that will effectively address the needs and desires of drivers with the existing parking resources.

"The eXactpark smart parking solution will be able to provide us with 24/7 insights on each individual parking stall, which will ultimately help us develop evidence-based policies to benefit our community,” said Julie Underwood, the Public Works Director of Kirkland, Washington

eleven-x is currently deploying 500 sensors and wireless gateways to capture stall occupancy in on-street spaces, surface lots, and waterfront parking areas in Kirkland’s busy downtown areas. The cloud-based eXactpark software will be integrated with the City’s new online parking data collection and management platform using standard APIs to provide meaningful parking occupancy data and analytics for City planners. Importantly, since the eXactpark sensors do not employ camera technology, none of the data collected will retain identifiable or personal information, ensuring privacy.

“In an increasingly connected world, where data plays a crucial role in improving urban mobility, it is just as critical to uphold the privacy of individuals,” said Dan Mathers, CEO, eleven-x. “This commitment is central to fostering public confidence in the deployment of data-driven parking technologies and is a core reason why our smart parking solution employs autonomous data management.”

Leveraging innovative technologies and accurate data to shape planning and parking policies will further the City of Kirkland’s sustainability goals, helping create a vibrant and future-ready city for everyone.