Chennai Corporation to introduce smart parking system at Marina Beach
Parking charges will be levied based on how long a vehicle remains parked on the service road along the Marina Beach, similar to commercial complexes.
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CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation, which has conducted a survey for smart parking at Marina Beach, expects Rs 16.27 lakh as revenue potential through the system. A tender will be floated next week for the same.
Earlier, tender for the parking fee was given to a single agency throughout the city. Though the contract period ended in March 2024, they were illegally collecting parking charges. When the GCC came to know about it, the contract was terminated.
Recently, the Corporation has planned to implement a smart parking system with hourly charges. In 2024, a survey was conducted where 15 people were employed per day, and used an app to make entry and exit of vehicles visiting the beach for six days.
The survey data revealed that currently there were three entry and four exit points. As part of the smart parking system, there is a potential for five entry and exit points considering the distance from Marina swimming pool to Queen Mary’s College. As many as 1,100 two-wheelers, 510 four-wheelers and 40 buses have been parked near Marina Beach.
However, the demand for parking has increased to 5,720 and 3,600 for both two-wheelers and four wheelers respectively. Similarly, buses are parked for a minimum of four hours and on weekends, at least 40-50 buses are parked.
“The potential revenue for a month from two-wheeler parking is Rs 4.20 lakh and Rs 12.07 lakh for four-wheelers. Charges will be Rs 5 and Rs 20 for two-and four-wheelers respectively,” said a senior GCC official.
Following the survey, a proposal was submitted to the Corporation for the billing system. For four-wheelers, there is no entry fee and parking charges will be collected via FASTag. Similarly, for two-wheelers, entry will be allowed only from the left side of the road (U-turn at War Memorial). Manual collection at exit points will be done with hand-held devices. If possible, separate lanes will be formed for entry and exits of bikes.
The proposed system will be implemented using a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to minimise the initial financial burden on the GCC while leveraging private sector expertise in managing operations.