Overview - ByPassaRe/Pick-a-Park GitHub Wiki

Introduction

According to a report released by research house Bernstein, the global vehicle population trend will drop slightly to almost 1.5 billion cars and around 507 million trucks by the end of 2025. This number is more than double the amount compared to 20 years ago. By 2040 it is expected that there will be almost 2 billion cars on the road, and some think it could be even sooner. With this sharp growth of vehicles but a limited amount of parking availability, the parking environment needs to adapt. It is also fundamental to deal with all the caused issues of this field like traffic congestion, accidents, and environmental problems. Once understood the scale of these hassles, governments, companies, universities and others entities tried to fix them. In this context, lot of technological solutions have been introduced in order to alleviate the urban traffic crunch and make on-street parking more efficient and better managed. According to a study by Kodransky and Hermann, (Kodransky M., G. Hermann, in 2011, Europeโ€™s parking U-Turn: from accommodation to regulation, New York), it is estimated that up to 50% of traffic congestion is caused by the driving of motorists in search of available parking space. Driving looking for a free place carries higher costs for motorists (time and fuel) but also negative consequences for cities, such as increased pollution, noise and accidents.

Motivation

Pick A Park represents a Smart City Solution that allow to connect, analyze and automate both the driving looking process and the management of the parking spots. Pick A Park gets in the Smart Parking field because it is an intelligent parking system that assists drivers in finding a parking space. Available spaces are usually indicated using an application or digital displays next to roads to navigate drivers to a vacant spot. The system includes the use of low maintenance battery powered wireless parking sensors to collect real-time data. The data is used to help drivers find available parking spaces without much hassle. Smart Parking involves the use of low cost sensors, real-time data and applications that allow users to monitor available and unavailable parking spots. The goal is to automate and decrease time spent manually searching for the optimal parking floor, spot and even lot. This application also includes specific sections for the municipalities employees, municipalities policies and the staff of the parking company. These sections make more efficient the handle of the management of the services indeed all the assistance can remotely be performed. This solution has a complete suite of services such as online payments, parking time notifications and even car searching functionalities for very large lots. A parking solution ensures lot of benefit like:

  • Optimized driving parking โ€“ Motorists are directed straight to an available parking spot, saving time, resources and effort. According to an American research, drivers spend an average of 17 hours a year searching for parking spots. The parking lot fills up efficiently and space can be utilized properly by corporate entities.

  • Reduced traffic โ€“ Traffic flow increases as fewer cars are required to drive around in search of an open parking space. Indeed the use of smart parking technologies will reduce congestion in a city where traffic was caused by drivers looking for a parking space 30-35% of the time.

  • Reduced pollution โ€“ Searching for parking burns around 1 million barrels of oil a day. An optimal parking solution will significantly decrease driving time and will reduce the amount of daily vehicle emissions.

  • Enhanced User Experience โ€“ A smart parking solution will integrate the entire user experience into a unified action. Driverโ€™s payment, spot identification, location search and time notifications all seamlessly become part of the destination arrival process.

  • New Revenue Streams โ€“ Many new revenue streams are possible with smart parking technology. For example, lot owners can enable tiered payment options dependent on parking space location. Also, reward programs can be integrated into existing models to encourage repeat users.

  • Integrated Payments and POS โ€“ Returning users can replace daily, manual cash payments with account invoicing and application payments from their application.

  • Increased Safety โ€“ Parking lot employees and security guards contain real-time lot data that can help prevent parking violations and suspicious activity. Drivers are less distracted looking around for a spot because they know where they can park their car. They will have their full attention on the road, accidents will decrease and safety will increase for themselves, other drivers and pedestrians.

  • Real-Time Data and Trend Insight โ€“ A smart parking solution can produce data that uncovers correlations and trends of users and lots. These trends can prove to be invaluable to lot owners as to how to make adjustments and improvements to drivers.

  • Decreased Management Costs โ€“ More automation and less manual activity saves on labor cost and resource exhaustion.

  • Increased Service and Brand Image โ€“ A seamless experience can really skyrocket a corporate or commercial entities brand image to the user. Whether the destination is a retail store, an airport or a corporate business office, visitors will surely be impressed with the cutting edge technology and convenience factors.