Officials at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field are betting that patrons will welcome the new SmartPark system unveiled Thursday for the airport's parking deck.
They said the $495,000 electronic parking guidance system will make it easier and quicker to find a place to park among the deck's 851 slots.
Rusty Newsome of Morrilton said the officials would win that bet. A machine technician, he travels frequently on business and said he was disappointed the last couple of times he went to the airport to find the deck unavailable. His company prefers he keep the company vehicle parked in the security of the deck.
The deck was closed for more than a month to allow for the installation of the system, the replacement of 150,000 square feet of netting to keep birds from nesting and a new coat of paint.
"I was actually glad to see it was worth the wait," Newsome said as he walked to his company vehicle parked on the second level. "It's great. Before, when you pulled up, you had to go up and down the rows looking for a space and you might be running late. It worked just fine."
The deck's system, which formally opened Sept. 1, uses lights working off sensors and linked to electronic signs to direct drivers to open spaces on the top two levels of the three-story deck. The deck's first level is reserved for rental-car operations.
A light above each space is red when the space is occupied and green when it isn't. A sign at each row tells motorists how many spaces are available and, by glancing at the lights, a motorist can quickly see which spaces are available.
The system includes the light and sensor above each space, 3 miles of conduits and 6 miles of cables, according to Shane Carter, the spokesman for Clinton National.
A large electronic sign at the entrance to the deck and visible to motorists approaching from the terminal side shows how many spaces are available on each of the two levels. It also delineates how many handicapped spaces are available.
Only three other airports in the United States operate a similar system: Dallas/Fort Worth International, Baltimore-Washington International in Baltimore, and Portland International in Portland, Ore.
But it was a side trip to Krakow, Poland, that Ron Mathieu, the executive director at Clinton National, made last year on his way to a conference of airport executives in Gdansk, Poland, that gave Clinton National officials the impetus to install the system.
After fog delayed his flight to Gdansk, Mathieu went to rent a car at the Krakow airport and noticed small lights above the parking spaces and asked someone about it. This system had three lights, including an amber one to denote the parking space was reserved.
"The whole concept ... was pretty cool," Mathieu said. "I hadn't seen it before."
Upon his return, Mathieu briefed other Clinton National officials about it and said that, since they were planning to replace the airport's dated parking system this year, "we really need to take a look at that."
The system is the latest amenity that Clinton National officials said they are providing to enhance the airport experience for patrons. Airport officials have recently revamped the airport's website, upgraded its Wi-Fi system so that now, they said, it is the fastest of any airport in the U.S. They also are redoing the concourse.
"We not only want our customers to have a good experience, we want them to repeat that experience," Carter said.
Fewer of them are. The moves come as the number of passengers using the airport continues to slide. Through August, 6.66 percent fewer passengers have gone through the airport this year compared with the same period in 2014.
Still, the deck is an important source of income for the state's largest airport. It accounts for less than a quarter of Clinton National's 3,507 parking spaces but annually generates a third of the $10 million in parking revenue, the airport's largest source of income.
Parking "is the first interaction we have with most customers coming to the airport," Carter said.
The airport also is mindful that it has nearby competition. Expressway Parking, about a block from the airport, offers covered parking for $10.95 daily versus the airport's $13-a-day price tag to use its deck. The company uses a shuttle to take customers to and from the airport, and offers discounts if patrons make reservations online. It released a mobile app last month.
The parking deck system is part of a $2.8 million upgrade of the overall parking revenue and control system, which airport officials said was 15 years old and at the end of its useful life.
The upgrade allows the airport to be the first in the U.S. to be compliant with a new credit card processing system required with the latest generation of credit cards, which replace their magnetic strips with computer chips and PINs, or personal identification numbers.
The project eventually will include a pre-booking application for parking linked to the airport's website and available for patrons to use from a computer or smartphone. It also will enable the processing of transactions through smartphones.
Metro on 09/18/2015