Slashdot Mirror
Sensor Networks In San Francisco Finds Parking Spots
MrSeb writes "You've heard of smart cars, and now, rolling out in San Francisco, is a smart parking system that promises to eliminate the arduous process of finding a parking spot. SFpark is a network of magnetic sensors that have been installed under 8,200 street parking spaces, along with additional information from parking garages and parking meters. These sensors are all linked together in a mesh network, and ultimately link back to a central command center. Drivers can access this parking data via the SFpark website or smartphone app, and see in real-time where parking spaces are available. At any one time, a third of cars on the road in urban areas are looking for parking spots, consuming more fuel, creating more pollution, and causing more accidents. With SFpark, you can see at a glance where there's a parking spot — but in the future, you'll be able to hit a button and have your smartphone direct you to the nearest parking spot."
...now delivered with greater efficiency than ever before.
While this is a great idea, in some cases it'll be a race to get an open spot, even worse than now. Now you'll be able to see open spots blocks away even if you can't get to it in time, so after a while people will know that they need to hurry and exactly where to go.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Oh, and since the summary inexplicably didn't link it, SFpark is here.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Will the system be smart enough to only provide info to the two or three closest cars requesting information? I'd hate to see the carnage when a dozen spot-seekers show up simultaneously to claim "their" spot.
I have visions of a dozen vehicles all converging on the one parking spot that has opened up.
Now we have a new reason for people to be paying attention to something other than the road while they're driving. I'm pretty sure that's just what we needed.
One little detail omitted is that they plan on (and are) raising the meter rates such that it becomes too expensive for some people to park. The goal is to price things such that "there is at least one open spot per block". (I don't know if that means per street-front block, or per 4-sided block.)
That those rates can go up to $18/hr, coupled with the minimum $50 parking tickets is why some people describe San Francisco as having "a war on cars". There's also the little gem that you can't pre-pay the electronic meters for the next morning--so yeah, it's free from 11PM to 7AM, but you have to be there on the dot of 7AM to beat the ticket-wielding meter maid summoned by the electronic sensor. Makes life a little rough for overnight guests who might like to have some wine with dinner.
Not to mention the scam of "street cleaning", which seems to require clearing the street of cars once a week yet somehow get cleaned at best twice a year. And you guessed it, $50 ticket regardless of whether any street cleaners actually showed up.
So yeah, neat technology. It's practical purpose is to raise money for the city and to provide price supports for off-street parking lots.
Remain calm! All is well!
In California it is illegal to use a cell phone while driving. Even while stopped at a traffic light. So tell me again how I'm going to use this parking spot locator service? I guess I could pull off the road into an empty parking spot and pull up the app, um, wait... Even if I did this, glancing down at my phone to follow the map to the parking spot would be illegal. Yes, it's a poorly written law. But there it is.
Main feature here is dynamic upward pricing of parking and more efficient dispatch of meter-maids. The rest is window-dressing.
Remain calm! All is well!
There isn't any word of a reservation feature. I'm sure instead of having 1/3rd of drivers randomly searching for parking spots, having 1/3rd of drivers compete for the same apparently few in number spots will work out somewhat less pacifically than wishfully presented.
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July 13, 2008
Smart Parking Spaces in San Francisco
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.
September 28, 2011
IBM Launches Parking Meter Analytics System
"It's not just a parking spot, think of it as a 'revenue-producing asset,' says Vinodh Swaminathan, IBM's director of intelligent transportation systems. Working with San Francisco-based startup Streetline, IBM has launched a system designed to help cities ease parking congestion and collect more parking fees. Streetline's remote sensors can determine if a parking space is taken by a car, whether a customer has paid, and how much time is left on the meter. And IBM's business intelligence software parses the data and generates reports and statistics for government managers. Drivers can benefit too: A free mobile phone app can help locate available parking spaces."
This already exists on big parking lots (f.ex. of malls) in Japan, where you can see on a map where the free places roughly are, and in front of each lane of parking spaces you will have another indicator indicating whether there are any free places in that lane. Very useful!
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
I misread the title of this article as "Senior networks in SF finds parking spaces". And was like :
Yay, finally someone found some good use for all those seniors strewn about the country. And networking them to. Good job.
Well I guess sensors will work as well, but what will the seniors do?
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
How reliable will the system be? All the sensors keep working, every parking spot, all the time, five nines? No damage from cutting into the pavement for utility work? Salt will never find its way through cracks and short them out? The maintenance crews will be just as diligent in the low-income parts of town as they are in the high-income parts?
How reliable does it need to be? How does it degrade? At any given moment it seems like maybe 2%-3% of all streetlights are out of commission, let's say the failure rate for sensors is about the same; what happens? What is the failure mode like?
How will drivers react if the system directs them to drive a long way for a parking space that turns out to buried in snow? Or occupied by a motorcycle that didn't trip the sensor?
Is this thing robust, or is it just a fantasy that makes a good demo but becomes useless the first year there isn't enough money for perfect maintenance?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
the summary inexplicably didn't link it
I'm pretty sure that was done on purpose to prevent slashdotting. Even just a link in the comments managed to take the site down (as of writing).
I've become a firm believer in "paid" parking or "market driven" parking. That is where we get rid of "free" parking and instead directly charge users fees for the parking they utilize. This article adequately explains why: http://www.lamag.com/features/Story.aspx?ID=1568281.
You can claim the street cleaning thing is a scam, sure I'll agree there that should go away, however, we should not have free parking at all. It is not logical. It only makes sense that the person that utilizes the parking should pay for it. That's how normal things work.
When we have "free" parking, the costs of parking are hidden from the user. This leads to abuse. If you are aware that something is free but obviously costs money to maintain or provide, then by all means as a typical capitalist, you should abuse the hell out of that free service. So now we have grown up with an expectation of "free" parking when that is clearly not the case.
This penalizes us in multiple ways. The strip mall is now twice as large in order to provide a surface level parking lot (the cheapest option). You must now buy a new house or condo with parking due to minimum parking laws (what if I don't need the space?). The city is now designed around cars and not people (we will never get density as long as this is true).
In related studies on traffic, the findings are similar. If we expand lanes on a congested freeway, demand will increase to fill up that lane because the freeway is subsidized. That is, the cost of using the freeway to users appears to be "free" therefore demand increases in order to take advantage of a free resource. The result is for a short period the freeway is not congested, then suddenly it has the same amount of traffic.
"Free" parking creates the problem it tries to cure. Users complain "parking is expensive" so the city gives them free parking, then suddenly everyone uses the parking because it is free and now there is a shortage of parking again. This is like giving people free money. They say "I have no money" so you give them $5 dollars. Then they go spend it. Then they complain they have no money again...
I wonder what happens if I glue a metal plate to the pavement above the sensor...