Technology Innovators Developing Smart Parking Enforcement Feature
Knightscope, a leading developer of autonomous security robots and blue light emergency communication systems, is leveraging technology to improve public safety across the country using Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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“At AWS we are customer obsessed and always focus on innovating on behalf of our customers”
INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SAFETY
In Huntington Park, California Knightscope’s K5 Autonomous Security Robot (“ASR) helped reduce calls for service by 10% and crime reports by 46% during its first year of deployment. The City Council subsequently voted unanimously to extend their contract and has recently awarded Knightscope a contract for its 5th year of service. Knightscope leveraged nearly a dozen AWS services to support this project. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) was used to create a scalable environment that could expand to meet increasing demand. Amazon CloudTrail helped simplify security analysis, resource change tracking, and troubleshooting.
“We have had a great experience integrating the K5 into our City resources, and it’s been very beneficial in expanding the police department’s ability to monitor public spaces, enhance the public safety element and improve the perception of our community,” said Cosme Lozano, chief of police, Huntington Park Police Department.
New York City’s Mayor and NYPD Commissioner recently announced that Knightscope’s K5 security robot will be used to patrol a Manhattan subway station this summer. This autonomous system will support the NYPD, enabling officers to spend more time engaging and interacting with community members. If the ASR observes anything of concern, it can immediately notify officers who can respond.
SMART PARKING ENFORCEMENT
In addition to public safety, Knightscope’s solutions benefit residents, visitors, and cities trying to manage an increasing demand for limited parking. Parking in densely populated areas is at a premium, especially in city centers and residential areas, making them ripe grounds for criminal activity. Spaces intended for vehicle parking are also facing competing uses such as ride hailing services, pick-ups and drop-offs for on-demand delivery, shared bikes and scooters, and even special events. This often causes a loss of revenue for fee-based parking institutions and undue stress and hostility among drivers looking to temporarily stop their vehicle.
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According to Market Data Forecast, parking management and smart mobility in North America is expected to grow with a CAGR of 10.8% between 2022 – 2027. McKinsey & Company reports 868 vehicles per 1,000 capita in the United States, making the need for safe parking areas even more crucial to the transportation system. A robust security program has many layers that must begin at a site’s outermost perimeters and parking lots. Knightscope’s ASRs provide an early warning to those considering nefarious activities that there are advanced technologies protecting the entire area. The Company’s systems have been helping to reduce crime where deployed in these areas since 2015, with many of its client-reported-successes and statistics documented here on the Company’s website.
“Parking continues to be a challenge in large metro areas, and enforcing laws, codes and rules associated with parking is more complex today with EVs, bike lanes, alternating lanes, and more,” said William Santana Li, chairman and chief executive officer, Knightscope, Inc. “We’re excited to build on our previous success in autonomous work to help cities manage this evolving challenge and look forward to releasing the all-new Smart Parking Enforcement feature in 2024.”
Through the use of autonomy, robotics, and machine learning, Knightscope is continuing to innovate on AWS to bring more autonomous solutions to its clients. “AWS enables us to build and scale our applications on infrastructure architected to be the most secure cloud computing environment available today,” said Li. “Over the years we have used various AWS services such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon DocumentDB. Now, we are excited to expand our work and take advantage of AI services AWS offers.”
Future efforts include plans to provide a fully automated audit of EV charging, VIP, reserved and general parking available, and more, yielding a safer and more convenient experience for guests. Autonomous systems can conduct the monotonous and computationally heavy work, freeing up the human operators for decision making and enforcement work.
“At AWS we are customer obsessed and always focus on innovating on behalf of our customers,” said Ryan Reynolds, Transportation and Justice and Public Safety Manager at AWS. “Knightscope has been an AWS customer for over a decade, and we are proud they have chosen to use AWS to continue building innovative solutions that help keep cities safe and accessible.”
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