Real-time Parking Assistant Using Crowdsourced Availability Data
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In densely populated urban areas, drivers face frustration and increased emissions due to the difficulty in finding available parking spaces, as they lack real-time information about parking availability until they arrive at the facility, leading to unnecessary driving and increased fuel consumption.
Innovation Solution
A real-time parking assistant system that utilizes inputs from various sources, including formal and informal monitoring, historical data, and crowd-sourced information to estimate parking availability, providing drivers with notifications and turn-by-turn directions through a cloud-based infrastructure and vehicle communication services.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If drivers search for parking manually by circling around designated areas, then they can find parking locations, but driver stress increases, drive time increases, and emissions increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by notifying drivers of available parking locations before they reach the parking facility. The server determines parking availability and sends notifications to driver devices in advance, allowing drivers to plan their routes efficiently and avoid unnecessary circling and searching for parking spots.
2Reliability
If drivers search for parking manually by circling around designated areas, then they can find parking locations, but driver stress increases and fuel efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by notifying drivers of available parking locations before they reach the parking facility. This allows drivers to avoid unnecessary driving and circling, directly reducing fuel consumption and energy waste associated with manual parking searches.
3Reliability
If drivers search for parking manually by circling around designated areas, then they can find parking locations, but emissions increase due to extended engine operation
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by notifying drivers of available parking locations before they reach the parking facility. This reduces the time the vehicle engine needs to run, thereby minimizing emissions and harmful factors generated during the parking search process.
4Loss of time
If the system provides real-time parking availability information, then driver stress and search time are reduced, but system complexity increases due to multiple data sources and processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges multiple data sources including formal monitoring data from parking facilities, informal monitoring data from other entities, and historical parking data into a unified processing system. The server integrates these diverse inputs to determine parking availability, managing complexity through consolidation rather than separate handling of each data source.
Solution Approach 2:
The server acts as an intermediary that receives data from multiple sources (parking facilities, other entities, historical databases), processes this information, and provides consolidated parking availability notifications to drivers. This intermediary role simplifies the architecture by centralizing data processing rather than requiring direct connections between all components.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for communicating parking space availability for a parking facility. A vehicle-based communication link is established between a remote infrastructure and a user interface device. A parking facility is selected utilizing the user interface device. The selected parking facility is communicated to the remote infrastructure from the user interface device via the vehicle-based communication link. Parking space availability within the selected parking facility is determined by the remote infrastructure. The parking space availability of the selected parking facility is communicated from the remote infrastructure to the user interface device. The parking space availability is determined by the remote infrastructure as a function of crowd sourcing data obtained for the selected parking facility, historical parking data of the selected parking facility, parking availability data of parking facilities proximate to the selected parking facility, and direct parking space sensing by a respective parking facility.