Probabilistic Parking Route Selection for Real-Time Vacancy Search
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional navigation devices often fail to provide accurate and timely information about parking availability, leading to prolonged and frustrating searches for parking, which can distract drivers and contribute to traffic congestion.
Innovation Solution
A navigation device that utilizes probabilistic methods to evaluate the likelihood of parking availability along various routes near a destination, aggregating and comparing probabilities to recommend a route with the highest chance of finding an available parking spot, thereby reducing driver distraction and congestion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If conventional navigation devices present a list of parking opportunities to the user, then the user is provided with parking options, but the user cannot determine the actual availability of parking at these opportunities, leading to prolonged and frustrating searches
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by proactively monitoring parking availability at multiple parking opportunities before the user arrives. Sensors detect vacant parking spots and the system pre-calculates routes to these spots, so that when the user requests parking assistance, immediately actionable routing information is already prepared and presented.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where sensors continuously monitor parking spot status and this information is fed back to the navigation device in real-time. The system also provides feedback to users about the current availability status of parking spots along recommended routes, enabling informed decision-making about which parking opportunity to target.
2Reliability
If the user visits multiple parking opportunities in sequence to find available parking, then the user may eventually find a parking spot, but the search process is prolonged and frustrating, especially when many opportunities are unavailable
Solution Approach 1:
The system proactively identifies and monitors multiple potential parking opportunities in advance, determining their availability status before the user needs to search. This preliminary assessment allows the system to present only currently available options with routing instructions, eliminating the need for users to visit unavailable spots and reducing search time while increasing reliability of the information provided.
3Ease of operation
If drivers reduce frustration by choosing available but unfavorable parking opportunities (far away or high cost), then parking is secured, but the user may pass ample available parking while walking long distances
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by providing customized parking recommendations based on the specific user context. It presents multiple available parking opportunities with differentiated information about their characteristics (distance, cost, accessibility) and calculates optimal routes to each, allowing users to make informed decisions that balance convenience with personal preferences rather than forcing a one-size-fits-All solution.
4Ease of operation
If conventional navigation devices adjust routes to navigate to selected parking opportunities, then the user is guided to parking, but the device cannot provide timely information about whether parking is actually available when the user arrives
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements real-time feedback mechanisms where sensors continuously monitor parking spot occupancy status and this information is immediately communicated back to the navigation device. When a user is routed to a parking opportunity, the system provides updated availability information en route, allowing the user to know whether the targeted spot is still vacant upon arrival and adjust their approach accordingly.
Data Source
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AI summary
Contemporary navigation systems are often tasked with routing a vehicle to a destination, but are poorly equipped to assist with finding a vacancy of a parking opportunity in which the vehicle may be parked. Static information, such as enumeration of parking garages and curbside parking meters, may be frustrating if such parking opportunities have no vacancies. The determination of vacancies with certainty may be difficult to achieve due to the characteristic volatility of parking, in which vacancies may be taken in seconds. Presented herein are navigation device configurations involving probabilistic evaluation of parking routes in a vicinity of a destination that may be generated and compared, optionally weighted by various factors, to identify a parking route with parking opportunities that collectively present a high probability of vacancy as compared with other parking routes, which may be presented to the user and/or appended to a current route of an autonomous vehicle.