Transportation and Power Grid in Smart Cities

17 Intelligent Parking Management in Smart Cities

Sanket Gupte and Mohamed Younis

Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250

17.1 Introduction

It would be fair to say that only a small portion of urban traffic is caused by people driving through a city to get to the other side. Most people wanting to go to the other end of a city do not pass through but go around the city instead, to avoid congestion. Then it is also fair to assume that just about everyone else, even taxis, are going to have to park, maybe for a few minutes or much longer. Depending on the city, they could be spending anywhere between 30 seconds to 20 minutes on average looking for a space to park. We can hence conclude that parking has a major contribution to congestion in modern cities. As the population of a city grows, the density of vehicles on the roads consequently increases, and our society is currently on the verge of facing the great challenge of a global gridlock.

Vehicles are causing massive headaches for city planners and drivers alike, and smart cities are examining how to leverage technology to make communities more livable. The US Department of Transportation, in the first quarter of 2016, put up a challenge and pledged up to $40 million (USD) to one city that would effectively define what it means to be a smart city (US Department of Transportation). The pitch of city of Columbus, OH, which won the challenge, ...