[sam_babushka]

As the father of a six year old, this is my pet grouse within society premises. Thankfully, the issues in my housing society seem to be restricted to drivers employed by residents, and occasionally, private taxis that enter the premises. To me, it seems like an issue of educating them on the pitfalls of something they're doing subconsciously. I have had friendly conversations with drivers that drive faster than required, and there is immediate correction of said behaviour.

[proton]

The point I was trying to make was that vehicles should be allowed the same use of the internal roads as they would have in any residential area. Ideally the planners should have tried to ensure minimal clash between vehicles and pedestrians, but in the absence of any such arrangements, the onus is on the occupants of the dwellings to take the same care that they would on any units facing public residential roads. Most of the houses built in these zoned areas are allowed to install speed bumps (the actual, proper use of speed bumps!), rumble strips, chicanes, bollards, and blind spot mirrors, acknowledging the danger of shared use of these roads by vehicles and children on tricycles and skateboards.

Not that vehicles can misuse internal roads. However, the same rules that prevent occupants from making nuisance of themselves inside their allocated space (loud music, inappropriate disposal of garbage) can be applied to vehicles of occupants and their visitors.

I know that well planned layouts in developed countries have rear vehicle access to driveways and garages, through narrow back lanes, as a solution to reduce the danger to pedestrians. However, there is still vehicle movement in the road in front of the house.

One solution to apartment blocks, with no provision for separation of vehicular traffic, may be to retrofit with elevated walkways to the recreational areas for children, even if it is just a foot over bridge, connected to level 1 of the blocks.

[Ragavsr]

Originally Posted by oxyzen

3. Driving above speed limit (20 kmph)

Action could be taking away the parking stop given to the vehicle for a month as fine. If they still break the rules, use of Jammers is a good deterrence.

Well, 20 kmph is far too low, especially if the width of the passage is wide enough and the distance is simply too long to exit.

25 - 30 kmph is fair. 20 is simply rolling speed.

Second, the apartment societies, Heck even the government itself doesn't have the right to take away a parking slot which the owner has purchased . Unless, the association wants to get a rap on tre knuckle in the courts.

Originally Posted by ishan12

I explained to them that the car will be parked in my own extra parking, but soon realized there was no point arguing with them. (They were just doing what they were told by the society management). Called up the chairman and explained and also put across my point that it is up to me and not the society to allow someone visiting me to park in my own parking or not.

Good that you stood up for protecting your property rights.

Originally Posted by fordday

This is not exactly black and white as you assume. A parking slot is not exactly same as the flat where you reside where you can do whatever you like. It is considered as common area and that is why it is maintained /cleaned by the association fund. Otherwise people would have barricaded it and some enterprising fellow could have even used it as store room.
So association has some sort of control over your parking slot.
hserus explains it why it is necessary to monitor parking slot usage.

Cleaning and maintenance of the common area doesn't make it the absolute property of the association or common area as such. With regards to parking, the owner of the slot has the absolute right to park whichever car he/she likes.

The visitors cars parked on owners parking lot also make entries with the security. So what is the issue with security.

Plus, if someone unauthorized is going to park in the parking slots, the owners would raise hell even before the security gets a sniff of it.

The last thing is, children especially aged below 5 or 6 need to have adult supervision. They can't be roaming around without any monitoring just because it is a gated community.

[lsjey]

Here are a couple of Video Analytics tools that I found. I really like them and may be take this up with our association to implement.


1. https://zoneminder.com/features/ This is an opensource tool where you can mark up an area and setup triggers based on set events.
2. https://www.intuvisiontech.com/videos/index This is what I think is ideally needed. But there will be costs. Not sure if it will be accepted.
3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7p5YEOrlSc

A simple Raspberry pi based DIY solution. Very basic/


https://randomnerdtutorials.com/inst...camera-system/ This is the place where you'll find the OS for the raspberry pi.





They real key is finding a solution that is cost neutral.



Will keep things posted.


Regards,
lsjey

[sinharishi]

Originally Posted by lsjey

1. How are other apartments doing this? What are the best practices?
.
.
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6. Tracking the movement of visitor vehicles: Are there solutions to track visitor vehicles, and check how long they have been inside the premises, where they are parked etc. Any solution that can automate this will be great. For example we are putting clamps on vehicles parked in visitor parking slots beyond certain time and impose fines. We have a boom barrier (for four wheelers only) and the security manning these make entry in to register books and do the tracking manually. Ideally the solution should track visitor vehicles to particular residence.

Here is what we have been trying to implement in our complex which has 2248 flats:

• We have RFID tags on all resident cars. Only RFID cars are allowed from all gates (total 5). Guests, Ola, UBER, Packers and Movers, Labour vehicles etc are only allowed entry/exit for one gate. This specific gate has 2 entries, one for resident (boom barrier) and another for all other vehicles (manned gate).
• For guest parking, there are separate blocks in Basement-1 and 2. If you have a spare parking, you can use it for the guest but still the car has to be registered.
• Danglers are provided during registration at entry to guests, which can be hanged on the IRVM or be kept on the dashboard. There are 2 types of Danglers, one is for the guest to use your spare parking and the other is for the guest who will be using guest parking. Guest parking are clearly marked and 2 guards are stationed to help guests park.
• Parking is free if you park the car for 3 hours. After 3 hours you have to pay 300/- which is same as overnight charges. These prices apply only to guest parking.
• Any vehicle, wrongly parked is clamped, released by AOA only after a fine of amount 100/-.
• Every guest vehicle has to deposit an ID while registering, the ID is safely kept in an numbered envelope which has the same number as on the dangler. To make it a smooth process, we have 3 guards for registration of guest vehicles. Guards also have to call up the flat and verify guest details. Flat number, dangler number is noted down in a register.
• We have one-way rule in the entire complex.
• Speed limit is restricted to 20 KMPH.
• One is not allowed to park the car in front of tower entry/exit for more than 15 minutes, else the car is clamped.
• For security purposes, only 2 gates are operational between 10pm and 6am.
• Speed breakers at every 100-150M also helps in discouraging people to drive fast.
  

All the rules and regulations are posted on the notice board on each tower and available on society connect application. We have been doing good so far. Hope this helps.

[landcruiser123]

I've lived in an apartment complex of 2000 units before moving to the US.
There is no other way for controlling speed other than physical prevention methods like sharp speed breakers. While we never encountered too many problems, the delivery guys and the laundry guys were a nuisance. And there's no way we could stop them from driving in the complex. Do you have a access control at the gate?

Apartments are complicated- you need to give people freedom. I'd against too many rules other than the rulebook of the resident owners association.

Originally Posted by lsjey

The drive way in the stilt is also used by residents for walking and jogging. The same drive way is used by kids for cycling as well.

All users- children, senior citizens, cyclists and joggers have the right of way. Implement one ways and minimize visitor traffic in certain areas.

Association communicates through dedicated app, email, whatsapp, and hike to residents on safety and need for driving safely. Residents are encouraged to stop rash drivers and counsel them.

Naming and shaming residents is key to make them aware of the nuisance they are causing.

1. How are other apartments doing this? What are the best practices?

Mentioned some of the practices above

2. We need to create a guide/rule book for the residents and publish them

I'd suggest not creating a separate rulebook for driving. Just add the sections in your current resident association rulebook

3. How do we handle an incident? While we want to make our society safe we don’t also want to put too many restrictions, and create ill will.
4. What are the legal aspects that we should address?
5. We have CC Camera footage as evidence. This gets used only when there is a complaint.

Like I said before, I'd avoid fining people for anything other than parking enforcement. And even that should be very minimal. The goal shouldn't be to fine people, it should be to prevent people from driving fast. The traffic flow should be designed to calm drivers. No one is above the law and there can't be a Police must be involved in every serious case like accidents.

For example -use 2 rows of potted plants on the road rather than enforcing speeds. Google 'traffic soothing devices.'

Parking: It is a tough problem to solve. On the street level, it must be monitored every night. We had the concept of overnight parking pass (issued for up to 4 days at a time) for residents. Any car without the pass would have a wheel lock at 12 AM. There'd be 2 rounds of checks by security guards going on bicycles late in the night. The other aspect of parking is having boards indicated reserved parking and security guards to guide visitors to the spot closest to the building. Would be ideal to completely separate reserved and unreserved spots, but most drivers understand a reserved spot if there's a number.

6. Tracking the movement of visitor vehicles: Are there solutions to track visitor vehicles, and check how long they have been inside the premises, where they are parked etc.

A parking pass for anything overnight and beyond.

[gauravanekar]

Originally Posted by asingh1977

10. No horn on sharp curves.

This rule is fully justified, otherwise the family living in the first floor of the corner will go mad due to 24x7 honking

[bharatbits]

How do you handle somebody else parking in your place? They answer saying i didn't know it was yours, i thought it is vacant since there was no car parked there for a couple of days, i keep parking there occasionally and you never had a problem.

Regarding rash driving what you do on public roads can be done here as well. Observe a couple of times, then collect video evidence and submit it to the police saying he/ she tried to run you down. But like ppl said here public shaming on whatsapp groups works better and quicker i feel something like "Jerk of the day" award.

[.HEM]

I never had the opportunity to live in an apartment complex. But, I visited an apartment complex to met a friend in Chennai. I was stopped at the gate and was given a visitor pass with date, time and the flat I visit, I was also shown the place where I should park my car.

They had a notice board with all sorts of announcements at the entrance of each block.

I personally had an experience, I live on a main street, without bus traffic, but there are at least 16 streets that branch-out from this main street. A guy was driving rashly through the main street, not once but twice when I saw. He was driving like a maniac.

I stopped him at the middle of the road, made him to come aside. I asked him to come inside my compound. He was amused why I'm doing this,once Inside - I asked him to either call the police or his parents to come and rescue him. He was stunned not knowing what to do, I never budged for his requests. Atlast, his dad came and I explained him how his son was driving, risking his life and others. I don't know how that guy drives else where, but in our road he is behaving properly with his bike.

I know I cannot do this to everyone who drive rash in my street, but I do stop someone who uses all his muscle power on his throttle and tell him they can do it on the highway nearby.

[Thermodynamics]

A tragic news, A 10-month-old girl died while reversing in a parking lot in west Delhi's Tilak Nagar area.(Source)

Earlier in this thread, I had quoted my fear about it.

Originally Posted by Thermodynamics

Even a simple reversing can become lethal. It can even be your kid hiding behind the next pillar. To make things worse, many Apartment parkings have poor illumination.

At the end of the day this is an accident, but when a victim is a kid as small as this, it is going to haunt you, more so to the person who caused it. There would be obviously questions and scenarios that could have avoided it. Like, had he stepped out and checked before parking?, do we need to redesign parking sensors for better detection? etc.,

Given the risk is quite prevalent, what do BHPians think would be effective in mitigating it. I see, one of the points suggested in this thread is firewalling kids from playing in parking lot. The thing is not all parking lots are designed alike i.e. they are not always isolated from other common areas.