Appian Technology PLC

B&Q Case Study

The Problem 

The car parking problems faced by B&Q's John Roberts must be familiar to professional Facilities Managers everywhere.

Since moving the B&Q headquarters to Chandlers Ford in 1987, staff levels have risen threefold to 1,550 people, spread across 3 sites. At the largest of these sites Portswood House, only 420 staff car park spaces are available. This was causing severe problems associated with vehicle congestion. Double parking and access blocking were prevalent, creating additional health and safety issues relating to emergency services. Management and staff alike were the losers in this situation nobody could be happy with the inconvenience and frustration imposed on their working days.

Five years ago, an offsite Park and Ride scheme was introduced in an effort to ease the problems, but this has proved too inflexible and difficult to administer to be really successful. The diverse arrival and departure times of full time, part time and shift workers, as well as visitors, not to mention those in car sharing schemes, which the company has always encouraged, all add to the burden of trying to manage this type of scheme. A permanent, long term solution remained elusive.

In 2002, B&Q's Facilities Manager, John Roberts saw a demonstration of an ALPR (Automatic License Plate Recognition) system at the Facilities Management Exhibition in London. He saw the potential of applying this technology to the site and took things forward with the idea of using camera identification to ID, log and monitor staff number plates. Employees would be guaranteed a space in the car parks on the days that they are eligible. Unauthorised parking, blocking in and access problems is now a thing of the past and visitors' parking could be successfully managed.

ALPR - how does it work?

Automatic Number Plate Recognition is fundamentally a CCTV based computer operating system that identifies logs and monitors vehicle number plates. When used on the entry and exit barriers of a car park it can open up a myriad of options for successful vehicle movement management that are virtually impossible to cheat. For example, it will allow only authorised vehicles to enter, keep track of the number of spaces available and permanently deny access to all unrecognised vehicles. These features also improve safety and security for both car park and vehicle owners. Most importantly, it can be easily programmed to provide total operational flexibility on a day-by-day basis.

The Solution:

B&Q selected one of Appian's distributors to install their ALPR system. We worked closely with B&Q to devise a successful programme, designed to allow only authorised vehicles to enter, keep track of the number of spaces available and permanently deny access to all unrecognised vehicles. At the same time a travel plan manager and assistant were appointed to encourage as many B&Q employees as possible to embrace the aspirations of the scheme by abandoning single occupancy work journeys and organising car sharing or other alternatives.

The recognition technique employed at Portswood House is a neural network approach. In addition to the number plate, an overview image can also be taken providing a detailed record of the vehicle's make and colour. The network builds a statistical model, which focuses on the features of making each individual character of the plate distinctive, rather than forming a definitive template of individual character shape. Consequently, neural network based techniques are more able to recognise poorly defined, distorted and dirty character.

Upon arrival at the entrance a vehicle's registration plate is read and checked against the system database. Traffic lights are employed to instruct drivers to proceed, whilst two way, hands free communication is also provided for additional instructions. A number of checks are made before the decision is made to open the vehicle barrier. These include car pool, rota, other vehicle in the car park, and spaces available. Provided the vehicle is authorised for entry at the time/day, a signal is passed to raise the traffic barrier. The same process will happen when the vehicle exits from the site.

A variable message sign is located adjacent to the car park entrance showing the number of available spaces in the car park in addition to messages for denying access, for example wrong day, wrong vehicles or wrong time of day/night. Monochrome infrared cameras are used on site both to read the plates and provide 24-hour security in virtually all weather conditions whilst the Plate Recognition Unit (PRU) is housed within the control room.

Due to the planned expansion of the system and the multiple user groups being operated, a separate sever was proposed to enable future expansion of the ALPR access system to many more B&Q car parks nationally.

Parking transformed

After only a month long installation programme, the successful introduction of ALPR at B&Q has transformed the efficiency and appearance of the car parking area. Double parking and access blocking have become a thing of the past. The introduction has also enabled the Park & Ride scheme to run with increased efficiency, and even enabled a portion of the car parking area to be converted to secure, covered shelters for bicycles and motor cycles. Plans are now in hand to expand the scheme to other HQ car parks - all linked to the existing central control room at Portswood House.

ALPR success at B & Q's headquarters has not gone unnoticed, even at board room level. Chief Executive Bill Whiting has praised the system as "outstanding".

"The system first went live on 14th July 2003 and we have been delighted with the effort made."