Ensuring a smooth flow of traffic and sufficient parking is a challenge for any urban region. The municipality of Schaerbeek in the Brussels-Capital Region is also facing the difficulty of providing enough and, above all, well-organised parking for the many cars travelling in the urban area. For each city and municipality, the purchase and operation should be as efficient as possible and the parking ticket machines should at all times meet the current highest quality standards. Schaerbeek has been relying on Hectronic’s proven parking ticket machine Citea for 20 years. It quickly became clear that Hectronic would once again be awarded the contract for the planned expansion and retrofitting of existing machines.

“We are proud to have won one of the largest individual orders in the company’s history with the contract from Belgium. As always, the municipality of Schaerbeek can rely on outstanding quality and our proven reliability”. – Pablo Rauwers, Managing Director Rauwers S.A., Belgium

In cooperation with its reliable and long-standing Belgian sales partner Rauwers, Hectronic will gradually deliver some 450 new Citea parking ticket machines to Schaerbeek by the end of the year. These parking ticket machines will be flexibly adapted to the needs and requirements of the Belgian municipality. A TFT touch display ensures convenient and clear operation of the machines for the user. The parking ticket machines correspond to one of the highest security levels and are equipped with state-of-the-art communication technology (4G modem). Each device is powered by an environmentally friendly photovoltaic hood and is protected against excessive vandalism by an anti-graffiti coating. When operating in cash-free mode, a built-in payment terminal accepts any electronic payment method. Be it contactless, insertable or swipeable, almost any debit or credit card can be used for payment at the Citea parking ticket machine.

In addition to the new purchases, around 800 existing devices will be upgraded to the latest state-of-the-art technology. The casing of the Citea parking ticket machines will be replaced, so that all these devices will also be equipped with the anti-graffiti coating and the cashless payment module. The majority of the parking ticket machines to be retrofitted will, just like the new purchases, also be equipped with a TFT touch display. The installation and exchange on site will be organised by Hectronic’s sales partner Rauwers in close cooperation with the municipality of Schaerbeek.

The cross-platform management software CityLine supplements the range of services offered by the terminals and enables efficient parking space management. The real-time monitoring of the machines ensures better responsiveness. Any warning or fault message is immediately displayed and transmitted to service staff via the mobile application. In the long term, CityLine can be used to precisely analyse and thereby optimise maintenance work.

In addition, CityLine provides valuable key figures for payment structuring and development. The integration of third-party systems, license plate registration, a service to automatically issue parking violation tickets and many other additional modules can be booked individually. For years Schaerbeek has been working successfully with CityLine as web-based back office management software. The newly added parking ticket machines can therefore be easily incorporated into the existing structure and smoothly integrated into existing processes.