Searching for a parking space is a routine (and often frustrating) activity for many people in cities around the world. This search burns about one million barrels of the world’s oil every day. As the global population continues to urbanize, without a well-planned, convenience-driven retreat from the car, these problems will worsen.
Smart parking is the first step in the right direction. SpotOn involves using robust sensors, real-time data collection, and mobile-phone-enabled automated parking search-and-find system that allow people to reserve parking in advance or very accurately predict where they will likely find a spot. When deployed as a system, smart parking thus reduces car emissions in urban centers by reducing the need for people to needlessly circle city blocks searching for parking. It also permits cities to carefully manage their parking supply.
Via the SpotOn mobile app, drivers will be able to:
search for the nearest free parking spot in the city
get driving navigation from their current GPS location to the found parking place
reserve a parking spot
pay for the parking spot upfront
The parking managers (e.g. cities or parking garage owners) will be able to:
Monitor the parking spots in real-time
Analyze the occupancy during the current working day
Generate parking usage reports and occupancy rate
Manage parking spot prices dynamically