Road-Embedded Sensors to Find Street Parking Tested in Taiwanese City (taiwannews.com.tw) 17
Taiwan doesn't have parking meters, writes long-time Slashdot reader Badlands, "but rather roving armies of maids on electric scooters that cruise their area with their smartphone and take a pic of your license plate and timestamp it, leaving a receipt under your windshield wipers."
But now one city will try "smart parking" services — which will also help drivers find vacant parking spots, according to Taiwan News: The service will utilize 3,471 geomagnetic sensors installed along 122 stretches of roadway in Banqiao, Yonghe, Zhonghe and Xindian Districts, according to a press release. The sensors will be linked to a publicly available online database to indicate where open parking spaces are available.
The "New Taipei Street Parking Inquiry Service" will be accessible through a main website run by the Department of Transportation. The service is also linked to two smartphone applications... Payments can be made automatically by linking one's app profile to their smartphone's telecommunications provider... For drivers that use spaces without linking their phone and vehicle to the smart network, cameras located along the street where the sensors are installed will allow the city to identify and bill drivers via mail, based on their vehicle's registration information.
But now one city will try "smart parking" services — which will also help drivers find vacant parking spots, according to Taiwan News: The service will utilize 3,471 geomagnetic sensors installed along 122 stretches of roadway in Banqiao, Yonghe, Zhonghe and Xindian Districts, according to a press release. The sensors will be linked to a publicly available online database to indicate where open parking spaces are available.
The "New Taipei Street Parking Inquiry Service" will be accessible through a main website run by the Department of Transportation. The service is also linked to two smartphone applications... Payments can be made automatically by linking one's app profile to their smartphone's telecommunications provider... For drivers that use spaces without linking their phone and vehicle to the smart network, cameras located along the street where the sensors are installed will allow the city to identify and bill drivers via mail, based on their vehicle's registration information.
This seems maintenance-heavy (Score:2)
Why use embedded sensors in the road instead of a smart camera on a lamp post that could cover a wide area and be much easier to reach for maintenance?
Re: (Score:2)
Why use embedded sensors in the road instead of a smart camera on a lamp post that could cover a wide area and be much easier to reach for maintenance?
Because we’re living in an ever-increasing world of economic instability, and there are already several documented ways of defeating a “smart” camera?
In the long run, the tech will probably pay for itself many times over, as do most toll services against humans. Maintenance is merely how they sold a few human jobs along with that highway robbery.
Re: (Score:2)
there are already several documented ways of defeating a “smart” camera?
This system relies on both the cameras and the sensors.
So why not use just the cameras? What do the sensors add to the process?
Instead of smart cameras, they should use dumb cameras that transmit raw images. Put the "smarts" on the server, where the software can be easily upgraded if people try to defeat the cameras, such as by painting their car to look like asphalt.
Re: (Score:2)
there are already several documented ways of defeating a “smart” camera?
This system relies on both the cameras and the sensors.
So why not use just the cameras? What do the sensors add to the process?
Probably the same thing a bazillion orange construction cones do spread out for miles in every direction well beyond the actual construction; make someone incredibly rich, along with the politicians supporting it.
Re: (Score:3)
Looking at just a quick Google result of companies that make them offers them with built in WAN (LoraWAN) capability and 4-10 year sealed batteries so it's a pretty simple device packaged up nicely with minimal maintenance perhaps, just set them in and go.
https://www.mokosmart.com/lora... [mokosmart.com]
https://parksol.lt/solutions/w... [parksol.lt]
https://www.beacontrax.com/pro... [beacontrax.com]
Re: (Score:2)
A camera can only cover a very small area before big cars start to block smaller cars from view of the camera.
Re: (Score:2)
As someone who has worked in municipal CCTV coverage... let me suggest that you haven't considered putting a dual-lens camera 18' up a pole on the opposite side of the street from the spots you are monitoring.
Disney Lots (Score:5, Interesting)
Disney World put up huge parking structures around their "downtown" area, that have sensors on every space with red/green lights above, so you can see where parking spots are. Whoever designed it is a genius, you can see the lights from nearly every angle, almost all the way across the huge decks.
Re: Disney Lots (Score:1)
Common in the UK and in China. Not so genius really.
Design (Score:2)
If the designer was European they were still a genius. The technology for detecting if a car is in a spot is trivial. Do you know how hard it is to have clear sight-lines through a concrete-walled parking structure such that you can see the ceiling equally across a space the size of a football pitch?
- The lanes have to be canted for proper draining, particularly in Florida
- The structural members and verticals need to be thick enough to hold millions of tons of vehicles
- The levels need to be tall enough to
Re: (Score:2)
We have had sensors embedded in street parking for many years in my city too. They don't have lights, but they do relay information back to the local government which then shows how many free spaces there are on signs as you are entering the city.
They seem to be solar powered. Probably some sub 1GHz radio and a collector, perhaps in the ticket machine.
Re: (Score:2)
Whoever designed it is a genius.
Genius enough to have been in Europe during the last 20 years, I suppose.
This isn't new in Taiwan (Score:3, Informative)
Tainan City in Taiwan had been installing and using smart parking meters for the last seven years; it uses a set of cameras on the parking meter to identify vehicle license plate numbers. It pretty much does all the things mentioned in the article, except it also allows you to pay on the spot via payment card or third-party payment, if you want to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Best luck to them over there (Score:2)
It all sounds great, except it rarely works. Sometimes the tally is close to accurate on a per-floor level. The markers in the aisle rarely get it right thoug
Chinese are quite clever. (Score:2)
Their current system sounds a lot like they have elsewhere in China. The new system sounds a bit like the system they have for public rental bikes and mopeds to force you to park in sensible /assigned areas - probably different, but still similarly embedded and with similar potential issues, I guess. They seem to work, so perhaps these will too.
If such a system can stop people parking on the pavement (usa:sidewalk) then I hope these spread throughout China - they're currently a menace, often forcing people
Nothing new (Score:1)
Aarhus, Denmark is getting something installed in the curb that can keep an eye on parking availability status.
People searching for parking paces are generating a lot of pollution and greenhouse gasses, so publishing availability info is helping fight global waming.
So that is what is happening. (Score:1)