It’s a hassle searching for a parking space on busy downtown streets. And it’s more than an inconvenience. In his publication, “The High Cost of Free Parking”, Donald Shoup estimates that searching for a parking space accounts for 30 percent of urban traffic congestion.
INRIX®, an international provider of traffic information and driver services, announced at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a new parking navigation service that tells drivers where to find a parking spot in real time. In addition to the location of the lot, the dashboard display also shows the current cost to park. It’s database includes 18,000 off-street parking locations in North America and 42,000 in Europe.
This new parking service connects through an in-dash DVD entertainment receiver from Kenwood which in turn access the Internet through WiFi-enabled smartphones or mobile hotspots. In addition to parking data, the devices can access content across multiple media sources, receive and send Facebook and Twitter updates as well as manage hands-free e-mail.
The year 2013 is predicted to be the year of the Internet of Things (IoT). CES has already seen a bunch of new IoT products. Applications like this are making me think that perhaps 2014 will be the year of ‘Internet of Vehicles’.