How parking zones, passes and EV charging work in AKCS

How is our parking laid out in AKCS?

Parking is two layers deep. A zone is a physical area; a slot is one numbered space inside it.

A zone has a name, a unique code such as BSMT-A, an optional floor level, and one of seven types: basement, stilt, open, visitor area, EV charging zone, emergency or reserved, and contractor. A zone is separately marked as allowing visitor parking or not, which the visitor fallback below looks for.

A slot has a number unique within its zone, one of five sizes (compact, standard, large, two wheeler, handicap accessible), one of five live statuses (available, occupied, reserved, under maintenance, blocked), and an allocation policy. Slots can be created in bulk from a prefix, a start number and a count.

Who gets which slot when a vehicle drives in?

The slot's allocation policy decides.

For a registered vehicle, AKCS tries three things in order: a free fixed slot assigned to that vehicle's flat, then a free slot matching the session type — dynamic for a resident, visitor for anyone else — then any free dynamic or visitor slot. If nothing is free, the entry is refused.

Resident and staff entries need a vehicle whose registration status is approved — pending, rejected and suspended vehicles do not match. Every session also stores a label for how the entry was taken; the default is manual by a guard.

How does visitor parking work, and how long can a guest stay?

A visitor session takes a visitor-only slot first, then falls back to any free slot in a zone that allows visitor parking. Expected exit is entry time plus your maximum visitor hours, defaulting to 4 hours.

If the guest was pre-approved, the session links to that visitor record and the host resident owns it — see pre-approving a visitor. Thirty minutes before parking expires, the host gets a push notification naming the slot and minutes left. A visitor session still active 24 hours after entry is expired nightly.

How do we give a contractor or an event guest a parking pass?

Issue a temporary parking pass, separate from a gate pass, covering four cases: contractor, event guest, moving in or out, and large delivery.

Each pass records the vehicle number and description, the driver's name and phone, and a validity window, and can name a zone or a slot. Every pass carries a unique 8-character alphanumeric code; checking it at the gate returns whether the pass is valid and whether it has expired.

Passes run active, used, expired or revoked. Anything past its end time is swept to expired every 30 minutes, and only an active pass can be revoked.

What counts as a violation, and what happens next?

Eight types, tracked through seven statuses: reported, under review, confirmed, penalty issued, disputed by resident, dismissed and resolved.

Two are found without anyone reporting them. A sweep every 15 minutes flags visitor sessions past their expected exit plus a grace period, defaulting to 30 minutes. A sweep at 11 pm flags visitor vehicles that entered on an earlier day and are still parked, where overnight parking is off. The rest are reported by a guard or committee member, with an optional evidence photo.

Reviewing is a staff act: only committee and security roles can create, edit, review or dismiss a violation — a resident cannot dismiss one raised against their own vehicle. Confirming with a penalty amount raises a penalty invoice due in 7 days against the vehicle owner — see generating maintenance bills.

How does EV charging work?

An EV session books a charger-equipped slot for a window and meters what it draws. Sessions run booked, charging, completed, cancelled or no show. Stopping a charge stamps the end time, takes the meter reading in kWh and multiplies it by the rate stored on that session; an invoice for the energy follows automatically when both are above zero. Each slot records its charger type, for example Type2-AC or CCS-DC, and its power in kW.

What do the committee, a resident and a guard each see?

Session history is scoped on purpose: a full parking log shows which flats were empty and when. The audit trail, 18 action types from slot assignment to penalty issued, is readable by community admins only, not by security. See who can see my data.

Which parking settings does the committee control?

One policy per community. Five settings act on their own; the rest are stored figures, shown to whoever is deciding.

Parking is also one of the 25 complaint categories, so a resident blocked in by a neighbour can file it as a complaint rather than wait for a guard to notice.