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."

So long, thanks for all the gas.

[wild_quinine]

Seems like a huge investment in a technology that probably only has five to ten years of life left in it...

Ahh... "smart", not "Smart"

[Kris_J]

And here I was thinking that parking lots were starting to mark out half-size spaces for Swatch Smart cars.

Pulas

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying by phone has been a standard procedure in Budapest, Hungary for the last 4 years. Just send an SMS and there you go, another hour or so, depending on your SMS. Each parking district has its separate phone number, so there's no need for fancy high tech equipment, just a few billboards.

Only few technical details

[mattMad]

I would like to know more about the kinds of technology they are using. There are tons of interesting issues like the communication technology, security, energy supply, ...
Unfortunately, the article does not provide many details so I looked for the web page of the company: http://streetlinenetworks.com/ [streetlinenetworks.com] - However, there isn't much more information to be found there either...
Anyway, it will be exciting to see a real-world wireless sensor network operating on such a large scale!

Japan

[Rocketship Underpant]

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.

Re:Great ... make everybody speed to the same spot

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

Pfft, we have this system here in Sydney shopping centres. If all the spots are taken, people simply cruise around looking for people leaving, same as always. Fantastic when it is only 80% full or so however.

Re:So long, thanks for all the gas.

[AmigaMMC]

>The US market is beginning to more closely resemble the European market :) Really? I live in the States but I grew up in Europe (lived there 20 something years) and still spend 5 weeks there every year. Most cars do at least 40MPG with many going above that. My father's car goes over 50MPG on the highways... how's the US resembling Europe exactly? Unless by "beginning" you meant the real "beginning" of the car industry... like 1900 ;-) What's more interesting is that european car companies and oil companies divisions are more concerned about environment and smart us of resources than their American counterpart. I know this guy, the director of movie/documentary "Fields of Fuel" (coming out in August in theaters nationwide) who could get a same-day appointment with the CEO of Ford in Europe with just a phone call, but in the US after 77 phone calls he could not go through (regardless of having been promised he would get an interview). The CEO of Exxon (Esso) Europe also claimed that Environment and alternative fuels was their main priority and showed him what they were doing to reduce dependence; the US based officials... you guessed it, no interview. This film got awesome public critique at its premiere at the Jackson Hole Film Festival.

Isn't it illegal to use a cellhone while driving?

[phorest]

Drivers will be alerted to empty parking places either by displays on street signs, or by looking at maps on screens of their smartphones.

So let me get mind around this, California bans cellphones [sfgate.com] while behind the wheel but will possibly tie this to cellphones or even a confusing screen on your dashboard?
When will the madness end?

Re:Ahh... "smart", not "Smart"

[pimpimpim]

Almost every multi-story parking lot I've been to in Europe has Smart car places. There is a simple reason: extra income for otherwise lost space in weird corners, near posts, etc..

Re:So long, thanks for all the gas.

[lena_10326]

A couple of weeks ago, a middle-class Slashdot poster wrote something along the lines of "Public transportation is cheap, but I prefer to drive so I don't have to be around poor people." I couldn't imagine someone here in Helsinki saying that. Everyone rides the metro, buses or trams.

It's bad. Real bad. In fact, it can sometimes be downright dangerous. When I was attending college waiting for the bus, it was not unusual to see some schizophrenic homeless person going nuts throwing bottles around, cursing at everyone, and causing a huge ruckus. One time I had someone go through my bag. Other times they called me names. Sometimes they'd beg you for money, and if you didn't give them something, they'd start pushing you around. I've been physically grabbed after giving a homeless man $3. It was all that I had, yet it wasn't enough.

My route to college went through the poor part of the city, so some of the problems were the result of the route taken. Look, let's be honest. If you're white riding the bus through a poor black neighborhood, you're going to be picked on, singled out, and accosted, which happened to me frequently. I was white, and they saw me as privileged--the great whitey keeping them down. I was not because I was rather poor. They shifted their anger about their situation upon me. When they weren't angry, they were hitting me up for money. After all, I was a "rich" white kid. I must be loaded. Surely I could spare a few dollars. None of that was true. I had nothing. On many days, I had maybe $5-6 to get me through the day and I had 4 buses to ride costing about $4 total, so ending with maybe $1-2 for lunch. When they hit me up for those couple bucks, they were quite literally bullying me for my lunch money.

Now, remember. This was all before the gangsta lifestyle was popularized and idolized. I imagine it cannot be any better today.

I will never ride those buses again and I'm sure many other commuters feel the same. I finished college a long time ago. I have a career now, and I have a car, which I will happily use to commute to my job, because public transportation in USA is simply lousy. There's no other way to describe it, and I will never forget just how shitty those public buses were.

Now, with these problems it's usually the bus that's the worst. When light rail is available, it's better. The experience is somewhere in between the bus and a commuter flight. It also depends greatly on the route, time of day, and size of the city. I would ride light rail, but no such thing exists in the city I currently live in. Most American cities don't have light rail, so all you're left with is the bus.