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From Parking to Platform: How One City Card Connects a City

The City of Benešov, Czech Republic, set out to solve a problem that most cities of its size face: public transport, parking, recycling, and leisure facilities all run on separate systems, each requiring its own credentials and not connected to the others.

Now, a single card - the Benefit Card, Benešov’s citizen card - connects all of them.

Citizens park, ride an electric bus, take the eco-train to Konopiště Castle, drop off recycling, and use the swimming pool with one Benefit card. The points they earn can be used to lower their next parking, swimming pool, or leisure fee.

Parking, which is the service citizens use most and an area where SKIDATA has over 40 years of experience, is the core of the platform and helps drive its adoption.

Working with local SKIDATA partner SayTech and DeepVision, Benešov has created a Smart City Card platform that combines five municipal services into a seamless experience for citizens.

This shows that the best foundation for a city platform is the one people already trust.

Project Overview

One Benefit Card for All City Services

Citizens access public electric buses, the eco-train to Konopiště Castle, recycling centers, the swimming pool, and parking with a single Benefit card - as a physical RFID card or digital wallet credential.

Rewards for Sustainable Behavior

Citizens earn reward points for choosing environmentally friendly services such as public electric bus transport or recycling, and redeem them for benefits like parking credit, swimming pool visits, or leisure activities.

Integrated Citizen Portal

A personal citizen portal allows residents to view transactions, track reward points, top up credit, and manage their Benefit card account — giving the city a direct, data-based connection to its residents.

Benešov faces a challenge that many mid-sized cities know well: there is a big difference between its official population and the number of people who actually live and work there each day. The city has about 20,000 residents, but its municipal services - public transport, parking, recycling, and leisure facilities - were all separate and not connected. This made it hard to deliver real value to people.

At the same time, the old parking system was causing the city to lose revenue. Payment relied on drivers being honest and on police checking paper tickets, which was not a reliable way to collect what the city was owed.

To solve both problems, the city decided to build a single platform that would give registered citizens real, daily benefits and replace the old parking model with a barrier-free, camera-based system that collects payments reliably without needing staff on site.

The goal was not just a small improvement, but to create a municipal access management platform that the city could control, expand, and trust in real conditions—and that citizens would want to use from the start.

Parking, which has the most daily transactions, was chosen as the starting point.

From Parking to Platform: How One City Card Connects a City

SKIDATA implemented a Smart City Card platform using Handshake.Logic and Parking.Logic, along with a full Mobility Suite that includes License Plate Recognition and Remote Monitoring & Control.

Local partner SayTech handled system integration, and DeepVision, a CRM specialist, managed citizen data connectivity.

The parking system was the first to launch, starting in March 2025 at Masarykovo náměstí and Malé náměstí in the city center.

It is fully barrier-free, with cameras reading license plates at entry and exit. The first 30 minutes are free, and drivers pay at a kiosk only when they are ready to leave.

Real-time data is shared with the municipal police so they can quickly follow up on non-payment. As the platform expanded, every registered resident of Benešov received a Benefit card, either as a physical RFID card or a digital wallet.

This card works for public electric bus rides, eco-train trips to Konopiště Castle, entry to the recycling center, swimming pool access, and parking. Citizens use the same card on electric buses, at the recycling center, the swimming pool, and city center car parks.

This is the first time SKIDATA’s access technology has been used inside a moving vehicle, not just at fixed locations.

The city manages everything through a single interface, giving it full visibility at every point. Parking with the Benefit card, with fees automatically taken from the citizen’s virtual wallet, is already live, so registered users do not need to use the kiosk at all. NFC media and RFID wearables are planned as the next step, and a visitor card is also being developed.

Since the parking system started in March 2025, Benešov has gained something new: reliable, automated revenue collection from the city center without needing staff on site.

The city also now has a real-time view of how residents use public services.

The reward system encourages sustainable actions, like using public electric transport and recycling, by making them measurable goals with direct feedback to citizens. Because the whole platform runs on SKIDATA Connect as the single integration layer, the city can add new features without relying on new vendors.

The same system lets Linköping’s operator, Dukaten, run a city mobility platform for 200,000 users with just 25 staff in a city of 160,000.

For Benešov, this is not just a goal to reach - it is the starting point for their platform.

I am very pleased to cooperate with a strong company that provides the necessary support for our project, and I am glad that we have created a strong team and an interesting solution.

Bohumil Rataj, Director, Technické služby Benešov, Bohumil Rataj

Facts & Figures

Project Name	Benešov Smart City Solution Platform
City	Benešov, Czech Republic
Installation Date	Parking system live March 2025; full platform soft opening March 2026
Size	City-wide solution for approx. 20,000 citizens
Requirement	Unified municipal access management platform connecting mobility, city services and citizen engagement
Solution implemented	SKIDATA Smart City Card platform built around the Benefit — Benešov's citizen card — available as a physical RFID card or digital wallet credential; including Handshake.Logic, Mobility Suite with License Plate Recognition, and Remote Monitoring & Control
Realization / Special Features	Barrier-free on-street parking with LPR and enforcement integration; public electric bus and eco-train validation live at launch; recycling center, swimming pool and leisure facilities connected via single Benefit card credential; reward system for sustainable behavior

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