THE NEED TO NETWORK

Wandsworth Borough Council, UK, has installed a central monitoring system to control the pay and display parking network in the borough. The council has the largest number of SchlumbergerSema pay and display terminals in the country. More than half are solar-powered units. The system has been upgraded to run Vizio communications and management software developed by SchlumbergerSema for the parking industry. The system monitors the terminals for repair and maintenance requirements and has short text messaging to engineers' mobile phones. The system can be programmed to distinguish between different types of signals. It allows tariff changes to be programmed and implemented simultaneously across the whole borough. The system is based on the Transcomm Network utilising Mobitex wireless technology.