iParking: A parking management framework

Abstract

In this work we have proposed a parking management framework that monitors vehicles driving in and out, calculates the number of available parking spaces, and finally disseminates the information to the parking's customers. For monitoring vehicles, we show our implementation of magnetic sensor network. The magnetic sensor is capable of collecting number of vehicle passing over the sensor, estimating vehicle's speed and length. The data is communicated over wired or wireless links to the server and is stored in the database for analysis and the number of available parking spaces can be displayed for customers before entering the parking garage. The dissemination of the information collected is through social network such as Twitter and Facebook. The test results show that the system yields a very accurate vehicle counting. The data obtained are consistent with the characteristics of drivers who access the parking facility. Analysis of data collected with our system is shown to provide useful information on which our future prediction of parking spaces will be based.