Real time parking space availability–On your smartphone

Use your smartphone to find a space for your car.

So there is a slight caveat to the above. You need to live or regularly drive to the City of Westminster in London.  However the following is a sign of things to come.

The new scheme uses smart sensors embedded into the road service to notify whether or not there is parking space availability.

The sensors relay up-to-date information to an online system which people can then view on their smartphone or tablet to find a vacant space. (We recommend you pull over when driving to check the site for available spaces).

The scheme is designed to help reduce congestion and help speed up the process of finding a parking space.  It is being trialled on 0.3% of Westminster’s available parking spaces, so this is by no means an extensive trial but a start none the less.

From September parking information will be made available on Parkopedia

So this will not come as great news to many of you reading this. But, it is a big step in technology and getting real time information.  Councils are often slow to adopt new technology, but the potential benefits to those using the service is quite substantial.

Being able to easily check for space availability is a wonderful thought (we have all driven round endlessly trying to find a space) and schemes like this need to be successful for further adoption and innovation within this area.

If you want to know more about the scheme CLICK HERE.