Public Enterprise “Roads of Serbia” has launched the “Pilot Project of Safe Parking Lots (Rest Areas)” aimed at providing safe parking places for trucks and commercial vehicles, at the location of the rest area “Bobovište” on the state road of the I category no A 1, highway section from Belgrade to Niš.

Safe parking places for trucks and commercial vehicles are listed as one of the main priorities in the ITS Action Plan and the ITS Directive 2010/40/EU, while European drivers and truck drivers from other countries transiting through the Republic of Serbia must have appropriate information about safe parking places.

Safe parking places for trucks and commercial vehicles are listed as one of the main priorities in the ITS Action Plan and the ITS Directive 2010/40/EU, as European drivers transiting through the Republic of Serbia must have appropriate information about safe parking places. The implementation of the National Access Point for data exchange as part of this pilot project provides a prerequisite for generating data on the number of available places at rest areas and parking lots and ensures a higher level of protection of property and persons on State IA roads.

The general concept of a safe parking lot in this phase of the implementation of the pilot project is the provision of the parking lot with technical protection systems, i.e. the installation of a video surveillance system for general and special purposes, as well as the integration of the system at the application level, which provides information on the number of free spaces as well as other relevant information.

The choice of micro location of the rest area where the system of “safe parking lots” will be established is based on the analysis of the number of stops of goods vehicles in order to take breaks prescribed by law.

By observing the space at the “Bobovište” rest area with 20 parking spaces for trucks and 23 parking spaces for passenger vehicles, data was obtained on the required amount of technical systems necessary to cover all parking spaces in such a way as to be secured by a video surveillance system.

Through the development of the project, the tasks that are a prerequisite for the implementation of such an ITS system in order to monitor and manage traffic, in accordance with the official legislation, were defined. Before the start of the implementation of the system, an Act on risk assessment in the protection of persons, property and business was drafted in accordance with the Law on Private Security. After the creation of the Act on risk assessment in the protection of persons, property and business, the design of the plan for securing the technical protection system as well as the Project for the implementation of the system was carried out.

The designed system of Secure parking lots consists of several functional units that contribute to the improvement and modernisation of the road network of state roads and the Republic of Serbia.

The system enables the detection of access control with the application of the most modern video surveillance technology for special purposes that verifies vehicles transporting dangerous goods by recognising vehicle registration plates, colour, type and model of the vehicle. A timely response to the occurrence of events in order to protect road users, the environment and the application of regulations in the transportation of hazardous materials depends on the detection of what type of hazardous materials are being transported in the vehicle, where the transport vehicle is located and what are the license plates.

Also, the mentioned video surveillance system covers the entire area of ​​the rest area, and enables the availability of all aspects of safety for road users, property of the road manager and commercial vehicles transporting dangerous substances, commercial goods and others.

The video surveillance system covers the entire rest area, ensuring the safety of road users, property, and commercial vehicles transporting dangerous substances, commercial goods, and other items. This system is integrated with the existing video surveillance platform owned by the road manager.

Communication links have been established with the Niš Regional Centre (RC) for traffic monitoring and management. The central monitoring station at RC Niš allows real-time monitoring and response to the technical protection systems at “Bobovište.” The installed cameras are integrated on a software platform that has the following features:

• Detection of parking space occupancy (occupied/vacant)

• Average parking space occupancy time per unit of time

• All data in real time

The “smart parking” solution relies on artificial intelligence and Deep learning, compatible with a large number of different camera models and enables different types of network architectures. The implemented solution provides data on each individual parking space for all types of vehicle categories.

PE “Roads of Serbia”, the road manager has the ability to analyse the behaviour and demands of drivers and to promptly provide the most favorable conditions for rest and support for professional drivers, in accordance with the spatial possibilities of the rest area.

The system enables PE “Roads of Serbia” to collect all relevant data on vehicles that participate in traffic flows using the integrated transport systems (ITS) of the latest generation, confirmed within the traffic systems of several European countries.

Within one system, the criterion of multi-functionality of system operation is satisfied, and in this way, by effectively investing in a traffic management system, the road manager achieves significant benefits and saves resources for road safety on the state roads in the Republic of Serbia.