Benidorm awards the contract for the installation of parking meters in the orange and green regulated parking zones

The Local Government Board of Benidorm City Council has awarded the contract for the supply and installation of parking meters, control devices, and a management platform for regulated parking in the city's green and orange zones. The successful bidder was Flowbird España SLU, which submitted a financial offer of €362,758 (VAT included).

In light of the scores obtained by the company's bid based on the various criteria followed, the Contracting Committee proposed the award on February 21st. Now the contract has become effective once the company submitted the final guarantee and the relevant documentation, and the proposal has been approved by the Governing Board.

This contract constitutes a necessary action to achieve the objectives defined in the 2023 "Green Benidorm" Destination Tourism Sustainability Plan, which is part of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, financed with European Union funds—NextGenerationEU. Specifically, it is included in Programmatic Axis 4, related to Competitiveness, and the milestone is action 16 (Reorganization of traffic flow in green and orange zones).

The contract establishes the need to implement a traffic flow control and management system fostered by regulated parking in the aforementioned zones. The procedure followed was open, harmonized, and issued through an ordinary tender, with a base tender budget of €394,299.

The execution period is set at 18 months. The Councilor for Mobility, Francis Muñoz, explained that "the supply, installation, and commissioning of the management equipment and platforms must be up and running within a maximum of six months while ensuring the software's operation has an additional twelve months." The established guarantee has been set at one year for the operation of the system and two years for the parking meters. According to the specifications, a total of 64 parking spaces will be installed.

The orange zone for regulated parking is limited to residents only, for a maximum of ten days, without paying a fee. Parking is prohibited for non-residents of the municipality of Benidorm. Parking hours in this zone are valid 24 hours a day, year-round.

However, parking in the orange zone is available for non-residents when they provide proof of consumption in establishments in the city, for which a form will be implemented to prove such consumption. Parking will be permitted for one-hour maximum for consumption between €5 and €9.99; two hours for consumption between €10 and €14.99; and three hours for consumption of €15 or more.

The green zone will be for limited parking, subject to the payment of a fee for vehicles by the pricing conditions of the blue zone, and will be applied 24 hours a day, every day of the year. In this zone, however, residents are allowed to park for a maximum of 48 hours without paying a fee.

On the other hand, Francis Muñoz also clarified that "the contract stipulates that both the management platform, the control devices, and the parking meters must allow for parking regulation according to the characteristics of each zone type so that variables such as schedules, rates, or permits can be modified." He even stated that "in the future, they must allow parking management in the so-called red zone, which would be where only residents would be allowed to park, for a limited time and without paying a fee, but which expressly prohibits parking for non-residents of Benidorm."