By Melissa Janice Choo
Student Contributor
6 December 2006

The NUS Office of Estate and Development will implement a new Electronic Parking System on all campus car parks early next year.

The proposed EPS is based on the technology of the Electronic Road Pricing System that is used on all roads in Singapore.

Sim Wee Leng, management support office of the campus security division, explained that the Electronic Parking System works by having antennas at the entry and exit points of car parks.

He said antennas would detect the in-vehicle units of cars and record them into the robust system.

At present, all NUS car parks are using the License Plate Recognition System — an image-processing technology used to identify vehicles by their license plates.

The OED plans to award the car park contract to develop the new system to a new tender in November. It also expects the implementation of the new car park system to be completed latest by April 2007.

Toh Yong Soon, assistant manager of transport services at the Office of Estate and Development, will be in charge of the new Electronic Parking System on campus come January 2007.

Addressing the decision for change in the NUS car park system, Toh said it is time to switch to “industry standards.”

“The EPS is promising because it is more reliable and there will be lesser leakages where car park systems cannot recognize the plate number,” he said.

Toh also said students can expect a new feature to be added to the NUS intranet with the implementation of the new car park system.

“After converting to the new Electronic Parking System, we will have a web portal where people can pay their season parking charges online,” he said.

Janice Fong, a fourth-year economics student who has been driving to school for the past four years, is excited about the plan for the new Electronic Parking System.

“I think that this system will be a more effective way to catch errant drivers and it will make it harder to beat the current parking system,” she said.
Warren Wu, a fourth-year communications and new media student shares Fong’s view.

“For someone who always buys season parking, I guess this is a fairer method of payment,” Wu said. “Hopefully there will be fewer loopholes in the new system."