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Smart Parking Spaces In San Francisco
2centplain sends along a report in the NYTimes on San Francisco's smart parking initiative. He asks, "Any guesses on the when this will be hacked? Like, 'reserving' an empty spot by convincing a sensor that a car is actually parked there, or, perhaps using the wireless mesh network for some other purpose?" Quoting: "This fall, San Francisco will test 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces in the nation's most ambitious trial of a wireless sensor network that will announce which of the spaces are free at any moment. Drivers will be alerted to empty parking places either by displays on street signs, or by looking at maps on screens of their smartphones. They may even be able to pay for parking by cellphone, and add to the parking meter from their phones without returning to the car."
On the other hand, over here in Europe out cars get good MPG, so even though we pay more for petrol, we don't pay that much. There's very few 8-15 MPG petrol guzzlers over here. :)
No tyrant thrives when every subject says no.
Japan has something similar to this, albeit with parking lots rather than metered curb spaces, which don't exist to my knowledge. When you enter a dense commercial district, overhead LED signs show a map of the neighbourhood with parking areas colour-coded according to whether there are vacancies or not.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
While it sounds cool and all, I don't understand how this is going to solve anything. If people are circling the blocks searching for parking, it's because there are no spots, not because they can't find them. This system doesn't create more parking spaces, it just fuels a feeding frenzy. Right now, if a spot opens up, the only people that know about it are the drivers on that particular street. With this new system, the spot will announce itself to dozens of vehicles in all the surrounding blocks, and there will be a mad dash to get to that spot. It will create traffic congestion. What they need is to tear down a few optimally placed buildings, and put in some multi-storey parking garages.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I strongly disagree. Public transportation in the US sucks because it doesn't go where you want to go, when you want to go. It works well for a very limited subset of the population that lives in high-density metro areas; it's useless for any task that leaves these areas.
Now before you complain that I'm an apologist, lemme cite some facts. I took a flight from Washington National airport not too long ago. My plan was to take the bus to the Metro train, which would drop me at the airport. Decent plan, right? After a mile walk to the nearest bus stop, I stood there for 45+ minutes waiting for the bus, which didn't show up. At that point, I had burned my "extra" time budget and was in danger of missing my flight. I jogged home, got in my car, and drove to the airport. I passed the bus some 60 minutes after it was scheduled to make a stop. Why didn't I drive to the Metro and continue from there? Because it was a weekend, and the trains run on a 12-minute schedule. With the bus-delay, I was in danger of missing the plane if I missed the Metro by the perfect amount.
Similarly, I *can* take public transportation to work, but I did the calculations, and the one-way time varies from 3 to 4 hours. That's for a 26-mile commute distance. Public transportation is coordinated at the local level here, so it's a horrible PiTA to switch across five different transport methods to get somewhere - bus, train, bus, different bus, etc. Schedules between municipalities are completely uncoordinated, so it takes maximum time to go anywhere. If you don't value your time, it's a wonderful way to burn through it.
What's that? I should move closer to work? Unfortunately, my office is located in an industrial business park. There isn't a residential area within 5 miles. Further, even if I could make that work, I'd be a huge distance from everything else. The US isn't laid-out for a public transportation infrastructure. It's been pasted on as an afterthought, and it sucks. We'd need to make some horrific changes to install a useful transport network, and I don't expect that to happen in my lifetime.
1. Add reservation option. Mark the spot as yours before you get there.
Drive calmly to the spot, as central server knows how far you are from the spot and it won't start charging you for the time it takes you to get there driving at the allowed speed.
2. Add red LEDs to the parking spot markers. Have them light up when the space is reserved. Have them turned off by sending a code from your mobile.
3. Add option to report people taking your reserved spot. Have tow-trucks ready and waiting.
Also have option to charge them for "stealing" your reserved parking spot, since you have already paid for it.
4. Profit!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
add to the parking meter from their phones without returning to the car.
this is REALLY missing the point of "max 2 hours" limits on meters. they were never meant to be a replacement for all-day parking in a garage. they were meant to be a way to keep commuters and all-day tourists from hogging up a spot all day, keeping locals and casual shoppers (and those visiting municipal facilities or medical offices) from having convenient access.
by allowing someone to just casually "push a button" from where they are and hold the spot another two hours, they effectively have created a new commuter spot and while its nice that the city gets the money, it makes things worse for the locals who actually need access for only an hour or two.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe