The present invention relates to a method and system that enables users to inform each other about available parking spaces along streets.
Many people who live or work in urban areas, or who visit urban areas, rely on street parking. In many areas, available on-street parking is in high demand. It is common for many drivers to cruise up and down streets trying to find a parking space near their destinations. This is time-consuming, inefficient and wasteful. Drivers seeking parking spaces may deliberately modify their times of arrival or departure in order to account for the need to find an available parking space. Sometimes, a driver seeking a parking space will take one that is not close to his destination, just because he cannot tell if a more convenient, closer space is available.
Accordingly, it is an objective to provide a system and method that facilitates finding on-street parking spaces. Further, it is an objective to provide a system and method that facilitates finding on-street parking that is reasonably convenient to a location of interest to a user.
To address these and other objectives, the present invention comprises a system and method that facilitate finding on-street parking. A community of users has an application on their mobile communications devices that allows them to inform each other when vacating on-street parking spaces. When one user operates his automobile to vacate an on-street parking space, a message is transmitted wirelessly that indicates the position of the parking space and the time. Another user in the community is driving around looking for a parking space in a desired area. The desired area may correspond to the current position of the other user or may be specified by the other user. The availability of the parking space vacated by the one user is matched with the desired area of the other user. A message indicating the location of the parking space being vacated by the one user in the desired area is transmitted to the other user for display on the wireless communications device of the other user.
In
The network 36 may be any network capable of transmitting information, such as a phone or data network. A portion of the network 36 is wireless. This wireless portion may use any technology, such as cell phone or satellite technology, for exchanging information with mobile devices.
In addition to having the capability to transmit and receive data over a network, the wireless communications devices 32 and 34 also include positioning systems 38 and 40, respectively. The positioning system in each wireless communications device may use GPS, A-GPS, inertial sensors, triangulation, time-of-arrival, or any other technology to determine the position (e.g. geographic coordinates, including altitude) of the respective wireless communications device and update this position information as the communications device is moved throughout a region. Further, the positioning system in each wireless communications device may provide the geographic position information to other applications on the wireless communications device or send the geographic position information to applications located remotely.
The first user 28 and the second user 30 use their wireless communications devices 32 and 34 to participate in a parking space community sharing system 50. The parking space community sharing system 50 is a combination of hardware, software and data. The first user 28 and the second user 30 use their wireless communications devices 32 and 34 to run a parking space sharing application. The parking space sharing application is a software application that includes components 52 installed on the communications devices 32 and 34 as well as components 54 on a remote server 44. The components 52 of the parking space sharing application that are installed on the users' wireless communications devices 32 and 34 may be downloaded from an online application store, such as the Apple App Store or Nokia's Ovi web site. The components 52 of the parking space sharing application that are installed on the users' wireless communications devices 32 and 34 are stored on computer-readable media, such as flash memory cards, disks or PROMs, in the devices. Alternatively, the components may be stored as firmware. The components 52 of the parking space sharing application may be comprised of permanent or temporary software or firmware routines, modules, programs and/or instructions operable when executed to cause a physical machine or device to carry out an operation, method of procedure. The parking space community sharing system 50 allows the users to let each other know about the availability of on-street parking spaces in the area 16. Operation of the parking space community sharing system 50 is described in connection with several scenarios set forth below
Referring to
When the first user 28 is leaving the parking space at 58, the parking application component 52 running on the first user's mobile communications device 32 transmits a notification 64 that the parking space that the first user's vehicle 56 had been occupying has become available. The message 64 is transmitted wirelessly. The parking application component 52 may operate automatically to transmit this notification message 64. In order to transmit the notification message 64 automatically, the parking application component 52 may interface with systems in the vehicle 56 (e.g., using a cable or wireless technology) to automatically detect that the vehicle 56 has been started and that it is being operated to pull out of the parking space at 58. Alternatively, the first user 28 may operate a user interface on the mobile communications device 32 to operate the parking application component 52 to transmit this notification message 64.
When the parking application component 52 transmits the notification message 64 that the parking space that the first user's vehicle 56 had been occupying has become available, it acquires information from the positioning system 38 on the first user's mobile communications device 32 that indicates the current position of the device 32 (and hence, the vehicle 56). The parking application component 52 includes this position information in the notification message 64 that it transmits about the parking space availability.
The parking application component 52 on the user's mobile communications device may include additional information in the notification message, such as the date, time-of-day, a user ID, parking restrictions (such as parking time limits or the need for a parking permit), whether the parking space is metered, whether the space requires parallel parking, and the type (or size) of vehicle.
In one preferred embodiment, some of this information can be stored in a user profile associated with the user. For example, a user profile would include the vehicle type, size, make and/or model. In this embodiment, some or all of this information, such as the vehicle size, would be automatically made available and included in the notification message 64. The user profile could be stored as data file locally on the user's wireless communications device 32 or alternatively, the user profile may be stored remotely on the server 44. If the user profile is stored on the server, the data indicating the vehicle size would be associated with the message 64 after it is received at the server 44.
The notification 64 about the available parking space is forwarded over the network 36 to the parking application component 54 on the remote server 44. The server-based parking application component 54 extracts the information from the notification 64.
The server-based parking application component 54 maintains a log 68 that contains the notifications about available parking spaces received from all the users who operate parking application components on their mobile communications devices. The log 68 includes at least the information about the location of the available parking space and the time (date and time-of-day) at which the parking space became available. The log 68 may include any additional data about the parking space as well, such as the user ID, any parking restrictions (such as parking time limits or the need for a parking permit), whether the parking space is metered, and the type (or size) of vehicle.
When the server-based parking application component 54 stores information about the location of the available parking space, it may use a geographic database 70 to obtain additional information about the parking space. The geographic database may be stored at the server 44. For example, the server-based parking application component 54 may use the geographic database 70 to reverse geo-code the geographic coordinate information in the notification message 64 received from the first user's mobile communication device 32 to obtain a street location (or address) of the available parking space. This street information may be used to determine additional useful information about the parking space from the geographic database 70, such as hours of parking restrictions along the street, day-of-week parking restrictions along the street, any parking restrictions (such as parking time limits or the need for a parking permit) along the street, whether the parking spaces along the street are metered, etc. The geographic database 70 may also provide useful information for traveling to the parking space, such as whether there are restrictions on the kinds of vehicles that can operate on the street, whether the street is a one-way street, whether a median or barrier along the street prevents U-turns, etc. This additional information about the available parking space may be included in or referenced by the log 68.
As stated above, the second user 30 is driving his vehicle 60 along the street 14 looking for a parking space to park his vehicle 60. The second user 30 operates the parking application component 52 running on his mobile communications device 34 to transmit a request 74 for information about available parking spaces in a particular area.
The parking application component 52 running on the second user's mobile communications device 34 may request information about available parking spaces in several different ways. In one way, the request 74 seeks information about available parking spaces in the immediate area of the second user's mobile communications device 34. When operated in this way, the parking application component 52 running on the mobile communications device 34 obtains data that indicates the current position of the second user's mobile communications device 34 from the positioning system 40 and includes this position information in the request 74.
In a second way of operation, the user 30 may define an area about which information about available parking spaces is desired. This second way of operation may be used when the user has not yet reached the location where a parking space is desired. This approach may also be used for commonly visited areas, such as the user's residence or work location. This approach may also be used when the user wishes to restrict the search for parking spaces to a specific, defined area.
To define an area about which information about available parking spaces is desired, the user operates the parking application component 52 running on his mobile communications device 34 to bring up a map of the desired area. This may be done by panning and zooming a map displayed on a display screen of the mobile communications device 34. Referring to
In a present embodiment, when the second user 30 operates the parking application component 52 running on his mobile communications device 34 to transmit the request 74 for information about available parking spaces, the second user 30 may also specify parking space preferences. Among the parking space preferences that the user can specify are time-of-alert and parking space size. (These are two preferences that a user of the parking space community sharing system 50 can specify and it is understood that the parking space community sharing system 50 may support additional preferences.) The user can specify these preferences through a menu provided by the parking application component 52 located on the user's mobile communications device 30.
Referring back to
The server-based parking application component 54 then transmits data 96 to the second user's mobile communications device 34. The data 96 indicates the locations of available parking spaces in the user's area of interest that match any preferences specified by the user. The parking application component 52 running on the user's mobile communications device 34 presents this information to the user, preferably in the form a map, such as the map 80 as shown in
The parking application component 52 running on the user's mobile communications device 34 may allow the user to select one or more of the indicated available parking spaces, calculate a route to these spaces from the user's current position, and provide route guidance to the user to follow the calculated route.
In the present embodiment, when the second user 30 parks his vehicle 60 in a parking space that the parking space community sharing system 50 had notified him about, the application component 52 running on the user's mobile communications device 34 sends a message to the server-based parking application component 54 to indicate that the space is no longer available. The message may be sent automatically by the application component 52 running on the user's mobile communications device 34 by detecting that the user's position matches the position of the indicated available parking space and that the vehicle has been parked, i.e., turned off. Alternatively, the message may be sent by the user by operating the mobile communications device 34. When the server-based parking application component 54 receives notification that the second user has parked in the parking space he had been notified about, the server-based parking application component 54 deletes the posting for the parking space on the log 68.
While the user 28 is still at the position 99, the user 28 operates the parking application component 52 on his mobile communications device 32 to indicate that he is planning on operating his vehicle 56 to leave the parking space at 58 soon. The parking application component 52 may allow the user to indicate a time (e.g., 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc.) when he will be leaving the parking space. Alternatively, the parking application component 52 may indicate that the user is planning on leaving the parking space immediately.
When the user 28 operates the parking application component 52 on his mobile communications device 32 to indicate that he will be vacating a parking space soon, the parking application component 52 sends a message to the server 44 to indicate the parking space availability in the same manner as described above. In a preferred embodiment, the parking application component 52 keeps track of the location at which the vehicle 56 had been parked so that the exact position of the soon-to-be-available parking space can be indicated in the message. If the parking application component 52 did not store the position where the vehicle 56 had been parked, it may indicate the user's current position 99 by default. Alternatively, the user 28 may operate the user interface of the mobile communications device to indicate the location 58 of the vehicle 56.
The rest of the operation of the system in
In one present embodiment, users of the parking space community sharing system 50 may use the system free of charge. In an alternative embodiment, users may be required to pay to use the parking space community sharing system 50. For example, users may be required to pay an initial fee, an ongoing subscription fee, a fee-per-use, or any combination thereof. In another alternative, users of the parking space community sharing system may be presented advertising when they use the system. The advertising may be targeted to take into account profile information about the user (e.g., type of car) or location information (e.g., businesses located near the available parking space).
According to another embodiment, the parking space community sharing system 50 may support commercial transactions between users of the system. In one alternative, a user seeking a parking space in an area may make a payment to a user vacating a space. Such payments may be facilitated by the parking space community sharing system 50. The parking space community sharing system 50 may use PayPal or other means of payment transaction processing for this purpose.
In yet another embodiment, the parking space community sharing system 50 may facilitate auctioning of parking spaces between users. According to this embodiment, a user vacating a parking space may seek bids from other users who want to park in the space. The parking space community sharing system 50 would manage such auctions including establishing times for the opening and closing of bidding, notifying the winners and losers, enabling the payment transactions, and managing the parking space swap. Similarly, the parking space community sharing system 50 could enable transactions in which a user seeking a parking space would seek offers from users vacating their parking spaces. The user seeking a parking space could then evaluate the amounts of the offers taking into account the relative convenience of the locations of the offered parking spaces.
In a further embodiment, the parking space community sharing system 50 may actually enable the creation of available parking spaces. In this embodiment, if there are no users vacating parking spaces in a specific area in which a user is seeking a parking space, the parking space community sharing system 50 would send a message to all users whose vehicles are parked in the area indicating that another user is seeking a parking space and, optionally, how much that user is willing to pay for it. In this embodiment, a user who otherwise would not vacate a parking space in an area would be induced to do so if provided with sufficient financial incentive. The parking space community sharing system 50 would help the user vacating a parking space to find another space further away.
In any alternatives that involve payments between users, the parking space community sharing system 50 may take a percentage or fixed amount of the transaction as a service fee.
As stated above, when the server-based parking application component 54 maintains the log 68 of available parking spaces, it keeps track of the time that the parking space became available. The server-based parking application component 54 may delete parking spaces after a period of time.
As mentioned above, the parking space community sharing system 50 uses a server 44 that runs part of the parking space sharing application. The parking space community sharing system 50 may service one urban area or may service a plurality of urban areas. If the parking space community sharing system 50 services a plurality of communities, the server 44 may organize postings about available parking spaces into separate lists, each of which would include the postings for separate urban areas. Separate lists may also be provided for different sub-areas within an urban area.
The parking space community sharing system provides an incentive to users to participate in the system. The benefit to a person looking for a parking space is clear, i.e., he gets a parking space. A user leaving a parking space has an incentive to let the community know about the available space because (1) other members of the community will reciprocate when that user needs a parking space again and (2) if the parking space is turned over to another member of the user community, it is more likely that the first user will be notified when the space becomes available again.
In a present embodiment, the parking space community sharing system keeps track of the members' usage of the system to determine compliance with the sharing principles of the community, i.e., whether any user regularly fails to report the availability of a parking space available when he leaves it. This may be accomplished by matching when a user takes a space and leaves a space. If a user regularly fails to notify the system when he leaves a space, he may be provided a warning, followed by suspension or expulsion from the community, if necessary.
The disclosed embodiments have been described in connection with finding on-street parking in urban areas. The system could also be used to find parking spaces in shopping mall parking lots. Although shopping mall parking lots generally have much available parking, many drivers prefer to park close to a particular store or entrance to the mall. The disclosed system and method could be used to help drivers in shopping mall parking lots find spaces close to a particular store or entrance. The disclosed system for community sharing of parking spaces can also be used for parking at airport parking lots.
Although the system described above includes a server that runs an application that keeps track of available parking spaces, the system could be implemented as a distributed system, without a server component, or alternatively as a peer-to-peer system.
In the above embodiments, the users of the parking space community sharing system 50 were described as persons who operate wireless communications devices, such as smart phones. In a further alternative, the parking space community sharing system 50 can be used by persons from non-mobile devices. In an example of this alternative, a user may want to help visitors traveling to his residence or place of business find on-street parking spaces nearby. In this example, the user may access the parking space community sharing system 50 from a non-mobile device, e.g., a personal computer. The non-mobile device would be connected to the data network so that it can access the server operated by the parking space community sharing system 50 or a web site associated therewith. The non-mobile user seeking parking spaces around his residence or business would use the parking space community sharing system 50 in the same manner as a mobile user seeking a parking space, including the step of identifying the desired area. Once the parking space community sharing system 50 identifies available parking spaces, the non-mobile user would then communicate (e.g., by cellular phone) the information about the available parking spaces to the visitors traveling to his residence.
It was stated above that the parking space community sharing system 50 can store a user profile associated with each user that contains information such as the user's vehicle type, size, make and/or model, as well as other information. This user profile may be used for targeted advertising purposes, either in connection with finding parking spaces or otherwise.
It is intended that the foregoing detailed description be regarded as illustrative rather than limiting and that it is understood that the following claims including all equivalents are intended to define the scope of the invention.