Easy Way to Find Parking Lot with Web Access via Smartphones through Wireless Sensors on the Street

Tired of trying to find a parking lot in a big city congested with vehicles? This is a common problem encountered by most of the drivers while driving in a city especially during lunch break or peak hours. Now with this potential solution from Streetline through a wireless sensors installed along all the parking space, hopefully the drivers will be able to find the best suitably parking lots in the shortest time.

One obvious benefit here is the drivers will be able to ‘sense’ those empty parking space without the need to travel street by street just to spot the right space by luck. Instead, they just need to look at the battery-operated display boards installed along the streets or even trying more convenient way by checking the downloadable map on the smartphone’s screen to see if there is any parking space available in nearby area. All these are accomplished with the adaptation of new wireless sensor technology developed by Streetline, pioneered by a team of researchers from University of California, Berkeley. The sensors, named as ‘bump’ will be installed adjacent to every parking space and the data (indicating if the parking space is empty) will be transmitted wirelessly and collected by a central management office. All these data will be relayed and broadcasted to the websites so that they are accessible by all drivers through wireless devices such as PDA or mobile phones. One thing to note here, the ‘bump’ is claimed to be very reliable and can operate for at least five to ten years without the need of any heavy maintenance.

The plan to roll out the first phase of field testing with 6000 meter parking spaces in San Francisco area will happen in this coming Fall. The success of the field test will determine the next phases and hopefully the same concept can be deployed to other cities for the benefits of public.