Updated connection between Monit Data and WPS parking solutions with MQTT protocol
The connection between Monit Data and WPS parking solutions has been updated. By using the MQTT protocol, the connection is more transparent and faster. Additionally, Monit’s Parking Monitor has been added to the WPS Marketplace. The advantage of this renewed connection is that parking facility operators can combine data-driven insights from WPS and other parking systems in a single dashboard within the Parking Monitor.
Monit Data’s Parking Monitor transforms data from many parking systems into valuable insights for parking facility operators. To save these users the time-consuming and repetitive task of collecting data, the Parking Monitor does this automatically. It therefore has data connectors with the most widely used parking systems, including well-known providers such as WPS, IP Parking, SKIDATA, and Scheidt & Bachmann.
The connection between the Parking Monitor and WPS parking solutions has been completely revamped. This new connection is now based on the MQTT protocol, offering many benefits for both WPS and Monit users. The Parking Monitor is also available on the WPS Marketplace, where WPS users are offered access to a wide range of software solutions.
WPS and Monit Data
WPS has grown from a Dutch supplier of parking systems into an international service provider of parking management solutions. The management and operation of parking facilities is done using the WPS Platform. This platform includes various types of parking equipment such as entry and exit terminals and payment machines. At the heart of the platform is a cloud-based parking management system that handles tasks like payments, intercoms, and license plate recognition
Another component of the WPS Platform is the WPS Marketplace, where WPS users can easily access various software solutions to enhance parking experiences and services for facility operators. These services include for example payments and signage solutions. But also reporting and analysis tools such as Monit Data’s Parking Monitor.
Connection with Monit Data
With it being one of the key vendors of parking systems, Monit’s Parking Monitor of course offers a data connection with WPS. Several WPS users have already chosen to use the combination of both services. With this combination they receive clear insights from multiple parking systems, including WPS, in one dashboard in the Parking Monitor. Both these existing as well as new users benefit from the updated connection between WPS and Monit’s Parking Monitor. The new MQTT based connection with WPS has already been implemented at eight users. These users include six municipalities in the Coöperatie Parkeerservice, a co-operation of several municipalities for parking management.
Benefits of using the Parking Monitor
The Parking Monitor offers many advantages for WPS users. These public and private parking facility operators often also use other parking solutions and vendors, such as data from scan cars, parking permit management, or other types of parking equipment. Monit’s Parking Monitor is vendor-neutral, and automatically collects and converts the data from all these parking solutions into a unified database. This allows users to access information from all parking solutions and suppliers in one dashboard through the Parking Monitor.
Because the Parking Monitor is cloud-based, digital connections with various parking systems can be set up efficiently. Once a connection with a specific system is established for one user, it is easy to implement it for others. The new connection with the WPS platform is based on the robust MQTT protocol.
MQTT
MQTT (historically an abbreviation for Message Queue Telemetry Transport) is a simple and efficient ‘machine-to-machine’ messaging protocol. One of its key features is its low bandwidth and energy requirements. These attributes originated from the protocol’s original design goal for managing remote oil industry equipment. As a result, MQTT has become the leading protocol for IoT (Internet of Things), being ideal for connecting small devices to the internet.
A brief explanation of MQTT
In a MQTT network, there are two types of entities. ‘Clients’ which can be devices like sensors, or servers with management software, which can send and/or receive data. These clients do not have to know each other but only they what types of data, the so-called ’topics’, they want to publish or receive. The other entity in the network are the ‘Brokers’ which manage the data traffic for these specific topics between the clients.
Overview MQTT network (source: www.twilio.com)
A simple analogy is listening to a traditional radio. You have radio stations and receivers. The receiver only indicates which station it wants to listen to, and the station doesn’t know which receivers are tuned in. In MQTT terms, a client publishes data for a certain topic without knowing who will receive it. The data is sent to a broker, which distributes it through the network. Receiving clients tell the brokers which topics they want to receive without knowing which client published the data. One client can receive multiple topics, or several clients can receive the same topic. Clients can also act as both publisher and receivers, for example a management server sending commands to a remote sensor, but also collecting data recorded by the sensor.
The advantages of MQTT
In addition to its low bandwidth and energy consumption, the structure of MQTT makes it easy to create a complex network of many clients. This network is also scalable if the number of clients grows, making it ideal for ‘machine-to-machine’ connections.
The connection between the WPS Platform and the Parking Monitor using MQTT is fully transparent and nearly real-time. The data from connected parking equipment is received directly without further processing. This is a big advantage as with any data that is processed, the risk of incomplete or altered data increases. The transparant data connection allows for more accurate analyses and algorithms in Monit’s Parking Monitor. And as all data is received, it also opens the possibility to create new and different insights.
An addition to Monit’s Parking Monitor
The use of MQTT adds a new type of data connection to the Parking Monitor, making it even more powerful. Although there are many initiatives for data exchange standardization in the parking industry, data is still provided in many forms by different vendors and equipment.
This includes connectors in the form of external servers, APIs, emails, and scrapers. Collecting all this data from different systems and vendors is a time-consuming and tedious task for parking facility operators. Monit Data’s Parking Monitor automates this process. This allows parking operators to focus their valuable time on using data-driven insights for policies, financial, and operational management.
