(Source: Andrew Derr - stock.adobe.com)
Drivers burn a lot of time and energy looking for parking spots, increasing traffic congestion, fossil fuel usage, and air pollution. US drivers waste $345 USD each in time, fuel, and emissions simply looking for parking space, according to a 2017 study[1] by transportation analytics company INRIX.
Smart parking offers a more eco-friendly alternative. It uses sensors and cloud connectivity to make it easier to find parking spots in a given area.
Because it helps drivers park more quickly and with less stress, smart parking can make a small but significant dent in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Smart parking also reduces traffic congestion, which makes it easier for other vehicles to get around. In addition, it reduces noise and makes it safer for pedestrians to get around in a less congested area.
Smart parking uses Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and cloud connectivity to make it easier to find parking spots in a given area. The solution keeps tabs on parked vehicles and ones entering and exiting the lot. It then conveys that information to drivers through in-lot signage or related apps.
Smart parking systems usually consist of a few essential components:
When a vehicle enters or leaves a spot, the IoT sensor relays information about the change in its status to the cloud. Drivers looking for parking can access the information through a tailored mobile application. For a more comprehensive solution, cities can implement smart parking across a larger area so maps can include information about where parking spots are vacant across the entire city, not just in one parking lot.
Parking lots can choose from various sensors, although a few devices are less resistant to extreme environmental conditions than others. Infrared sensors measure the change in energy or energy reflected by a vehicle entering or leaving a space. Ultrasonic sensors emit sound waves and measure the time it takes for the reflected energy to determine whether a vehicle is in a spot.
Magnetometers detect the presence of vehicles by measuring the change in the magnetic field. Through underground wiring, inductive loop detectors at the entrance and exit of a parking lot measure the electromagnetic field changes to determine how many cars enter and exit. These sensors can only tell if a lot is empty or full and not dive into granular detail about where vacancies might be. The method is less reliable when backed-up traffic leads two or three cars to be miscounted as one.
Monitoring vehicles moving in and out of parking lots is not the only feature that intelligent parking systems can provide. Cities and parking lot management can analyze long-term information stored in the cloud to make more strategic decisions about resources and fees.
Smart parking systems can deliver more advanced dynamic functions, such as automatically adjusting the fees depending on peak volumes, facilitating parking slot reservations, detecting overstays and computing corresponding charges, and helping drivers with turn-by-turn guidance. In spots that enforce a time limit, enforcers can lean on information from smart parking systems to automatically alert them and/or issue a ticket when a car has exceeded its time limit. This delegates city resources more efficiently since officers don’t have to waste time patrolling the area continuously.
Cities implementing smart parking justifiably worry about vendor lock-in. Implementing a proprietary city-wide strategy would require budgetary resources and a high level of community buy-in across an entire state or local government.
Legacy infrastructure might not always be compatible with contemporary smart parking systems. In addition, as cities become more connected, smart parking will be only one of the smart components. So governments must decide how the various pieces can plug and play together.
Hurdles aside, the many advantages of smart parking—for the environment, improving citizens' quality of life, and generating additional revenue opportunities–cannot be ignored.
As smart cities increasingly rely on efficient public transportation to get people to where they need to go, there may be less square footage devoted to parking in urban areas. Such a trend may increase the need for smart parking solutions.
By 2050, 68 percent of the world’s citizens will live in cities, according to the United Nations[2]. To accommodate this population density, it's crucial that existing urban infrastructure, including parking, be made as efficient and valuable as possible.
Smart parking will drive us toward that better future.
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Poornima Apte is an engineer turned writer with B2B specialties in robotics, AI, cybersecurity, smart technologies and digital transformation. Find her on Twitter @booksnfreshair.