Humans burn about one million barrels of oil a day searching for parking spaces, according to Greg Rucks and Laura Guevara-Stone. They propose a new approach:
Smart parking pilot programs are now being deployed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Beijing, Shanghai, São Paulo, and the Netherlands. For example, in Los Angeles, low-power sensors and smart meters track the occupancy of parking spaces throughout the Hollywood district, one of its most congested areas. Users can access that occupancy data to determine the availability of spots and then pay for them with their mobile phones. In addition to lending convenience and environmental benefits, smart parking improves the utilization of existing parking, leading to greater revenue for parking owners. Los Angeles saw a return on its investment in smart parking within three months.
Why the time is right:
The costs of sensors and hardware-based solutions is decreasing drastically, for the first time allowing cities and companies to gather detailed new data on transportation patterns. Furthermore, with smart phones capturing more and more of the global telecommunications market in both developing and developed nations, software entrepreneurs are able to collect and analyze data and deliver insights and information to consumers in brand new ways that do not require installation of new hardware.
For example, Roadify started in 2009 as a free app that helped New York City residents find parking spaces. Users enter the address of a spot that they are about to leave or of an open spot that they happen to walk by, earning points known as Street Carma (users can later cash in that Carma to redeem rewards). Other users nearby will see that spot on the app if they search the area. The app has since expanded to cities nationwide and now provides real-time transit information about schedules, delays, accidents, and more from crowd-sourced commentary about local transit conditions.
Previous Dish on the future of parking here, here, and here.
The Dish 