Walkthrough Complete - Smart Car Park IoT

You’ve completed the IoT car park management walkthrough

Step 4 of 4

✓ Walkthrough complete!

You've experienced how IoT sensors provide real-time car park occupancy monitoring. Here's what you learned and what to do next.

What you learned

1 Real-time monitoring eliminates manual work

50 IoT sensors continuously detect vehicle presence and publish occupancy data to AWS. No clipboards, no manual counting, no outdated spreadsheets. Dashboard always shows current state with 15-second latency maximum.

Impact: Eliminates 1.5 hours/day of manual labor = £9,750 annual savings

2 Multi-zone visibility guides optimization

Seeing all zones simultaneously reveals patterns impossible to detect manually. Ground Floor fills to 90% while Level 2 sits at 73% - clear opportunity for differential pricing or better signage.

Impact: Fill unused capacity = £4,160 additional revenue from Level 2 alone

3 Historical trends enable data-driven decisions

24-hour patterns show 85% occupancy at peak (8-10am, 12-2pm, 5-7pm) but only 60% off-peak. This data supports dynamic pricing, targeted promotions, and capacity planning.

Impact: Revenue optimization through demand-based pricing strategies

4 AWS IoT scales affordably

IoT Core, Lambda, DynamoDB, and CloudWatch handle millions of sensor messages for just £145/year. No servers to manage, automatic scaling, pay-per-use pricing. ROI is 178:1.

Impact: Enterprise-grade IoT infrastructure at fraction of traditional cost

Committee-ready talking points

Use these talking points when presenting this scenario to leadership, finance, or IT committees:

For Finance Committee: ROI justification

"Implementing IoT sensors in our car parks delivers immediate financial returns. For a typical 50-space car park:"

• Revenue increase: Improve occupancy from 60% to 85% = £16,250 additional revenue annually
• Operational savings: Eliminate manual counting = £9,750 saved annually
• Total benefit: £26,000 per car park per year
• Technology cost: £145/year for AWS services (IoT Core, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudWatch)
• Net ROI: 178:1 return - every £1 spent returns £178 in value
• Payback period: 2 days for AWS costs, 4 months including sensor hardware

"Multiply by our [X] car parks council-wide for total annual benefit of £[X × 26,000]. This is not a technology expense - it's a revenue generation and efficiency investment."

For IT Committee: Technical architecture and security

"The solution uses AWS managed services with enterprise-grade security and scalability:"

• AWS IoT Core: Managed MQTT broker handling sensor authentication, TLS encryption, and message routing. Scales to millions of devices automatically.
• AWS Lambda: Serverless processing - no EC2 instances to patch or maintain. Auto-scales from zero to thousands of concurrent executions.
• Amazon DynamoDB: NoSQL database with 99.99% availability SLA. 7-day data retention via TTL minimizes storage costs.
• Amazon CloudWatch: Real-time dashboards and alarms. No third-party monitoring software required.
• Security: All data encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest (AES-256). IAM controls who can access dashboard. Sensor authentication via X.509 certificates.
• No vendor lock-in: Standard MQTT protocol - sensors work with any MQTT-compatible platform if we need to migrate.

"Operational burden is minimal: AWS manages patching, scaling, and availability. Our team focuses on business logic, not infrastructure management."

For Leadership: Strategic smart city positioning

"Car park IoT is a pilot for broader smart city transformation:"

• Immediate value: Car parks deliver ROI within days, funding expansion to other use cases
• Citizen experience: Real-time availability via website/app reduces frustration, cuts circling time, lowers emissions
• Foundation for scale: Same IoT infrastructure extends to waste bin fill sensors (£50K/year savings via route optimization), street lighting (£30K/year energy savings), flood detection, air quality monitoring
• Data-driven governance: Shift from reactive (respond to complaints) to proactive (prevent problems with real-time alerts)
• Innovation leadership: Demonstrates council's digital maturity, attracts investment, improves resident satisfaction

"This is not just about car parks - it's about positioning our council as a leader in digital transformation and smart city innovation."

Production deployment guidance

Ready to deploy IoT sensors in your real car parks? Here's the roadmap:

Phase 1: Pilot (1 car park, 3 months)

1. Procure hardware: 50 ultrasonic sensors (~£6,000), 1 LoRaWAN gateway (~£400), installation labor (~£2,000) = £8,400 total
2. Deploy AWS infrastructure: Use CloudFormation template from this walkthrough as baseline, customize for your needs
3. Install sensors: Mount above each parking space, connect to LoRaWAN gateway, test connectivity
4. Integrate with existing systems: Website widget showing real-time availability, mobile app API integration
5. Monitor for 3 months: Validate sensor accuracy, measure occupancy improvements, calculate actual ROI

Phase 2: Scale (remaining car parks, 6 months)

1. Present pilot results to decision-makers with ROI data
2. Procure sensors for remaining car parks (bulk discount available)
3. Roll out in waves (2-3 car parks per month) to manage installation workload
4. Centralize monitoring: Single CloudWatch dashboard for all council car parks
5. Optimize pricing and signage based on multi-car park data patterns

Phase 3: Expand (other IoT use cases, 12 months)

1. Leverage same AWS IoT Core infrastructure for waste management sensors
2. Add street lighting monitoring and adaptive dimming
3. Deploy air quality sensors at strategic locations
4. Implement flood detection in drainage systems
5. Build unified smart city dashboard showing all IoT data streams

Start with pilot before full rollout. Validate ROI assumptions, test sensor accuracy, and gain operational experience with small-scale deployment first.

Next steps

Generate Evidence Pack

Create your business case with what you've learned. Perfect for committee papers.

Return to Smart Car Park IoT

Review deployment options, costs, and technical details.

Try Another

Explore more AI scenarios for local government.

Clean up your resources

Good news: Your resources will automatically delete after 2 hours from deployment. However, you can delete them now to stop any further charges immediately.

Deleting your stack will permanently remove all data including:

• Database content (RDS Aurora)
• Uploaded files (EFS storage)
• Any configuration changes you made

Step-by-step deletion

1. Open the CloudFormation console

   Go to CloudFormation console (US East 1)

   Screenshot: CloudFormation console
2. Find your stack

   Look for a stack named: ndx-try-smart-car-park-[timestamp]

   The timestamp is when you deployed. You can sort by "Created time" to find recent stacks.

3. Select and delete

   Select the checkbox next to your stack, then click the Delete button.

   Screenshot: Delete stack button
4. Confirm deletion

   Click Delete in the confirmation dialog. The stack status will change to DELETE_IN_PROGRESS.

5. Wait for completion

   Deletion typically takes 5 to 10 minutes. The stack will disappear from the list when complete.

Costs stop after deletion

Once your stack is deleted, you will not incur any further charges for this scenario.
Estimated evaluation cost: Less than $0.50 for a 15-minute trial

Troubleshooting

Stack shows DELETE_FAILED status

This usually happens when resources can't be automatically cleaned up. Common causes:

• S3 bucket not empty: The bucket may contain files. Go to S3, empty the bucket manually, then retry deletion.
• Lambda functions in use: Wait a few minutes and retry. Sometimes functions take time to fully stop.
• Network interfaces still attached: These usually clear within 5 to 10 minutes. Retry the deletion.

To retry deletion: Select the failed stack and click Delete again.

I can't find my stack in the list

If your stack isn't visible:

• Check the region: Make sure you're viewing US East (N. Virginia) in the console header.
• Stack already deleted: It may have auto-deleted after 2 hours. No action needed!
• View deleted stacks: Click "View nested" dropdown and select "Deleted" to see recently deleted stacks.

Extending your evaluation time

If you want to continue testing beyond the 2-hour limit:

• Resources will auto-delete after 2 hours total (from deployment)
• Cost: approximately $1-2 per hour of active testing
• Maximum cost is capped by template configuration

You can redeploy the scenario anytime to start fresh with a new 2-hour window.

Still having trouble? Contact the NDX:Try team or report an issue on GitHub.

Contact us if you have questions about deploying IoT in production or need help with your smart city strategy.

Need help?

If you're stuck, check the troubleshooting section or contact us.

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