IBM is addressing a range of city challenges with its groundbreaking technologies to help make metropolitan areas around the globe a better place to live. As part of its Smarter Cities project, the technology giant offers solutions to a variety of urban problems in transportation, building, education, public safety, healthcare and more areas, creating cities of the future. On September 28, the company announced its collaboration with Streetline, Inc., the leading global provider of sensor-enabled mobile and web applications for smart parking solutions, aimed at helping people with tips for finding parking spaces faster and providing urban areas officials with the ways to alleviate traffic congestion.
In the past year, IBM conducted the 2011 Commuter Pain survey in 20 biggest cities of the world to figure out the transportation challenges in metropolitan areas, and according to the study, in the past year, “nearly six out of 10 drivers had abandoned their search for a parking space at least once and drivers have spent an average of nearly 20 minutes in pursuit of a coveted spot.” In fact, experts say that difficulty of finding parking lots is the cause of 30% of urban traffic congestion. The new Smarter Parking solution dubbed The Smarter Parking Starter Kit, developed by IBM and Streetline, uses real-time data gathered from parking sensors and applications, to provide drivers with timely information on where it’s better to park at the moment, the system will also help municipalities improve parking zones and choose better locations for them, preventing illegal parking, saving time and money and contributing to environmental protection (cars that drive in excess produce extra tons of CO2 and use more gas).
“Using this real-time parking data combined with advanced parking analytics built on IBM Cognos, cities can then tap into this information to understand important factors including hourly occupancy, occupancy by block, parking duration, and trends by area,” states the press release. The free ‘Parker’ app, which makes the processed information available to both drivers and city officials, can be downloaded via the iTunes Store or Android online stores.
«Today, there is a massive amount of transportation data available that can help cities alleviate congestion and improve transportation services, such as parking,» said Gerry Mooney, general manager, global Smarter Cities, IBM. «It’s critical for cities to be able to turn this data into information and insight so they can anticipate and avoid situations that cause congestion, while simultaneously improving the services they provide citizens and businesses.»