Connected cars to be mobile space finders
Parking spaces can be as precious as rhodium in city centres, with cars desperately seeking them causing 30 per cent of local congestion. UK Autodrive has tested an ingenious solution: using connected cars’ onboard sensors to monitor free parking spaces around Milton Keynes, and sharing that info with other cars that are hunting for somewhere to stop.
It works by ultrasonic sensors detecting free spaces in parking lots or kerbside, and relaying the data to roadside units, which then update a shared parking map every few seconds. In Milton Keynes, the connected cars’ snooping is overlaid with parking bay sensors and car park cameras, in a bid to cover all 22,000 spaces. Our connected Mondeo is directed to a free bay and parks – but then relays that it’s astride two spaces: blame GPS that’s only accurate to about 10 metres. Sharpen this up, and invest in the infrastructure, and this congestion-busting tech looks real-world feasible.