Tech can help find you a place to park
One of the few things more frustrating than driving
in a big congested city is searching for a parking spot. Technology has already
started to solve the problem of squeezing into a space, with automatic parking
features taking the pain out of parallel parking. Now it is trying to solve the
other headache: finding a spot in the first place.
A slew of apps can predict where on- and off-street
spaces will be available, direct you to them, reserve a space and let you pay
for the spot through your smartphone. And manufacturers are beginning to add
those capabilities to their vehicles’ navigation screens. BMW, one of the first
to do so, is making the functionality of the Parkmobile app available through
the navigation system on many of its 2018 models.
The BMW screen shows available garages, and its
ParkNow service allows drivers to reserve a space and, if the garage has
contracted for the service, pay through the car. Certain garages will allow
drivers to scan the app’s bar code, using their phones, to open the gate. For
those metered parking spaces that have sensors, the car’s navigation system
asks if you want to start a parking session and then, once that’s confirmed,
charges for the meter on the screen.
Most vehicles lack extensive integration with parking
information, but drivers can easily replicate the functionality with one of the
many smartphone apps on the market, including BestParking, Parker, ParkMe,
ParkWhiz and SpotHero. Which one you choose may come down to the number of
parking spaces that any particular app inventories in your city.
According to Frost & Sullivan’s research, various
parking apps track more than 57 million on- and off-street spaces in the United
States and Europe, and are used by 30 million people.
According to Inrix, a data collection firm that
provides traffic data to the federal government and space information to a
number of parking apps, American drivers waste 17 hours per year in a search
for a space. Almost one-third of the drivers surveyed said they had been in a
fight over a space in the previous year.
“Parking is a very important problem to solve,” said
Jason Schulz, Inrix’s general manager of parking. “Congestion and parking are
opposite sides of the same coin.”
Eric A Taub
NYT NEWS SERVICE
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