International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)

www.ijser.in
ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Volume 2 Issue 6, June 2014

Smart Parking System Based On Reservation

Mohit Patil1, Rahul Sakore2
1,2
Department of Computer Engineering, Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, Navi Mumbai, India

Abstract: With the increase of economic behavior and the upgrade of living standard, the ratio of people in India who own
automobiles and motorcycles have recently increased giving a boost to Metropolitan Traffic. Therefore, parking issues will be a big
challenge to facilitate traffic network and ensure urban life quality. Searching for parking space in most metropolitan areas, especially
during the rush hours, is difficult for drivers. The difficulty arises from not knowing where the available spaces may be at that time;
even if known, many vehicles may pursue very limited parking spaces to cause serious traffic congestion. In this paper, we design and
implement a prototype of Smart Parking System based on Reservation (SPSR) that allows drivers to effectively find and reserve the
vacant parking spaces. By periodically learning the parking status from the host parking database management in parking lots, the
reservation service is affected by the change of physical parking status. The drivers are allowed to access this cyber-physical system with
their personal communication devices. Furthermore, we study state-of-the-art parking policies in smart parking systems and compare
their performance. The experiment results show that the proposed reservation-based parking policy has the potential to simplify the
operations of parking systems, as well as alleviate traffic congestion caused by parking searching.

Keywords: smart parking, modeling, simulation, QR (Quick Response) Code;

1. Introduction scope shown in section 5 and paper concluded in Section

6.
Searching for a vacant parking space in a metropolitan
area is the daily concern for most drivers, and it is time 2. Literature Survey
consuming. It commonly results more traffic congestion
and air pollution by constantly cruising in certain area In this paper, we mainly focus on designing a new smart
only for an available parking space. For instance, a recent parking system that assists drivers to find parking spaces
survey [1] shows that during rush hours in most big cities, in a specific parking district. In addition, an important
the traffic generated by cars searching for parking spaces goal of the system is to reduce the traffic searching for
takes up to 40% of the total traffic. To alleviate such parking, hence reduce energy consumption and air
traffic congestion and improve the convenience for pollution.
drivers, many smart parking systems aiming to satisfy the
involved parties (e.g., parking service providers and 2.1 State-of-the-art Parking Management
drivers) have been deployed. The current smart parking or
parking guidance systems only obtain the availability Traffic searching for parking comparison under different
information of parking spaces database which is managed parking guidance strategies. Many parking guidance
by reservation authority, and simply publish the parking systems have been developed over the past decade [2][3].
information to direct drivers. However, since these In this subsection, we study several existing parking
systems cannot guide the drivers to their desired parking guidance approaches and explain their limitations.
destinations, even sometimes make the situation worse, Furthermore, we simulate these different parking
they are not “smart” enough. For instance, when the management strategies under realistic traffic and parking
number of vacant spaces in an area is limited, more conditions, compare their performance, and show results
drivers, who obtain the parking information, are heading in section 4.
for these spaces. It will cause server congestion. It
is, therefore, strongly desired to provide an effective 2.1.1 Blind Search
strategy to address these concerns. Blind searching is the simple strategy applied by users
when there is no parking information. In this case, the
In this paper, we design and implement the prototype of a drivers keep cruising for parking spaces within a certain
Smart Parking System based on Reservation (SPSR) using distance to their destination. The drivers will stop
android, It not only broadcast real-time parking searching until finding any available space. Otherwise, the
information to the drivers as part of a communal drivers will extend the searching area and continuously
application, but also to provide reservation service as part look for vacant spaces in the neighboring parking lots.
of user-targeted service. The drivers can retrieve parking
information and reserve their desired vacant spaces via 2.1.2 Parking Information Sharing (PIS)
Wi-Fi or Internet. The rest of this paper is organized as This mechanism is commonly adopted by the current state
follows. In Section 2, we discuss about several existing of the smart Parking system design [6]. After the smart
approaches and challenges for smart parking systems. In parking system publishes the parking availability
Section 3, we present the detailed architecture of proposed information to the drivers in certain area, the driver will
reservation-based smart parking system. In Section 4, we decide their desired parking destination where the parking
explained the results through extensive simulation. Future lot has available spaces, according to the obtained parking

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)
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ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Volume 2 Issue 6, June 2014
availability information. However, if the number of vacant between 25 kHz and 50 kHz. They use the reflected
spaces in a parking lot is very limited in busy hours, it is energy to analyze and detect the status of a parking space.
likely that the number of drivers in demand for these Ultrasonic waves are emitted from the head of an
parking spaces, which is based on parking information. ultrasonic vehicle detection sensor every 60 milliseconds,
This phenomenon is called “multiple-car-chasing-single- and the presence or absence of vehicles is determined by
space”, which may cause severe congestion. time differences between the emitted and received signals.

2.1.3 Buffered PIS (BPIS) 2.2.3 Two Tier Parking & Automatic Multilevel Car
To address the problematic “multiple-car-chase-single- parking System
slot” phenomenon, some designers of smart parking Two Tier Car Parking System is ideally suited for people
systems modify the PIS mechanism. They intentionally having 2 cars.[18] They can use parking space for a single
reduce the number of vacant spaces, when publishing the car to park both their cars using the Two Tier Parking
live availability information to keep a buffer. Therefore, System one above the other. The system consists of a
though there may be more drivers pursuing the limited single platform which allows the car that is not used very
available spaces, the system has some extra spaces to frequently to be parked on the upper level and the one that
avoid the conflict. But it is difficult to determine the is used frequently on the lower level. G offers 2 variants
number of the buffer spaces. If the buffer is too small, the for the Two Tier Parking System - Hydraulic System and
problem of “multiple-car-chase-single-space” will not be Electro-Mechanical System. Automatic Multilevel Car
eliminated. If it is too large, the utilization of parking Parking Systems can be fully automatic or semi-
spaces will be low. automatic. They can be manned or unmanned systems (i.e.
operated manually or using computers). These systems
As alluded to above, the blind search system is an open can be installed above or below the ground thereby
loop system, where users make decision without looking making optimum use of available space. Another
at the state of the system. The PIS and BPIS strategies advantage in this case is that human intervention is not
allow drivers to make decisions based on the system state required for parking the car.
(e.g., parking availability information). However, the
phenomena of multiple car-chase-single-spaces cannot be 2.3. Performance Metrics
fully eliminated. To reduce the traffic searching for
parking, we suggest a reservation based system, where In order to evaluate the performance of the strategies
drivers make reservations through the parking implemented in smart parking systems, we introduce the
management system. If a driver makes the reservation following metrics, which reflect the willingness of drivers,
successfully, it guarantees an available parking space for and our concerns on traffic congestion and environmental
him, and the driver can park at the reserved space without protection.
searching. The reservation-based system allows drivers to
select the most convenient parking space under their 2.3.1 Walking Distance
budget constraints. Walking distance is defined as distance from a driver’s
selected parking space to the destination. This important
2.2. Existing Parking Systems factor reflects the willingness of drivers when selecting
parking spaces. The driver commonly wants to choose the
2.2.1 Vision Based Method most convenient parking space where it is closest to his
Monitoring detection technology can be divided into two destination. In the proposed model of SPSR, the drivers
categories. The first estimates the number of remaining select the parking spaces depending on this factor, which
vacant spaces for the entire parking lot by counting indicates their satisfaction.
incoming and outgoing vehicles. The second monitors the
status of each individual space and can be used to guide a 2.3.2 Traffic Volume
car to a vacant space. To detect the status of an individual In our proposed model, traffic volume is specifically
parking space different methods have been utilized[15], defined as the amount of traffic generated by parking
such as ultrasonic sensors placed at each space (thus it searching. This factor is not negligible and associated with
requires many sensors), or surveillance cameras placed at the traffic congestion and air pollution. The proposed
a high position. reservation-based smart parking system is design to
reduce the traffic volume caused by parking searching, as
2.2.2 Sensor Based Method well as satisfy the need of drivers. We investigate
Another detection technology uses sensors to detect performance of the proposed smart parking system using
vacant spaces in a parking lot. Different factors play a role these performance metrics.
in choosing the proper sensor, including size, reliability,
adaptation to environmental changes, robustness and cost. 2.4. Challenges
Sensors technologies are categorized as either intrusive or
non-intrusive.[16] Intrusive sensors need to be installed Given the design objectives of smart parking systems that
directly on the pavement surface, so digging and tunneling require the coordination among multiple parties, we
under the road surface are required. Non-intrusive sensors summarize the main design considerations as follows:
only require fixing on the ceiling or on the ground.
Ultrasonic sensors are categorized as non-intrusive
sensors.[17] Ultrasonic sensors transmit sound waves

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)
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ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Volume 2 Issue 6, June 2014
2.4.1 Fake Parking Requests The parking lot consists of a group of parking spaces. The
The system collects and stores the data about the state of a parking lot is the number of occupied spaces
performance metrics including the status of parking space, versus total spaces. Every parking lot has access to the
reservation time, parking location, driver’s identity. All Internet to communicate with the management system and
data stored by the system is at least stamped with time users, and share parking information with other parking
metadata. As the user is allowed to book only one parking lots. In each parking lot, the reservation authority is
space at a time from one id, it is a big challenge for us if deployed for authenticating the individual user’s identity
user is trying to book one or many request at a time from and reservation request.
one id. To overcome this problem we implemented a
queue buffer which persistently checking the new request
and compare it with the existing id requests. If any
requesting id matches existing id then the request is
directly discarded and a message showing ‘no more
parking spaces available’ is displayed.

2.4.2 Users Identity Verification

Verifying users identity is a major security concern as
users with no reservation can enter and occupy someone
else’s parking space. In our proposed system, the user can
open the application and verify their identity via the
received QR code. Reservation authority sends a QR code
to the user as soon as user reserves the parking space. At
the parking lot host identifies the user by scanning the QR
code generated by authority management system.

2.4.3 Delay in parking

User reserves a parking space for specific time duration
(Starting time & ending time). What if the user is unable Figure 1: System Architecture
to reach the parking spot at the aforementioned time? So
to overcome this challenge, we provided the time extend In this case, Reservation authority identifies each user by
option to the user, but user can only extend the time by 15 the unique QR code which has been send by the
min from the specified time. User has to pay some extra management system to the user at the time of reservation.
money to extend the time.
Once the reservation order is confirmed, the reservation
2.4.4 Timer authority updates reservation information to hold the
As soon as reservation time is about to expire, user must related space for the user. Upon retrieving the parking
be notified about this. To deal with this, SPSR gives prior information, the system updates the state of the parking
notifications at regular intervals to the user. For example, lot. Based on the state of parking lots, the system (1)
if there are only 30 minutes left to reach the expiration analyzes their occupancy status and congestion level, (2)
time. SPSR will give notification when 20 minutes are determines the parking prices according to their pricing
elapsed and when 10 minutes are elapsed a final scheme, (3) broadcasts the prices to all users periodically,
notification is given. and (4) stores the parking information, QR code and
prices for further analysis. The system serves as the
3. Proposed Methodology centralized decision-making body in a planned economy.
It makes all pricing decisions regarding the state of
In this section, we present the architecture and design of parking lots and user demands [14]. This system is a
proposed reservation-based smart parking system, which closed-loop system to dynamically adjust parking price,
implements a reservation service to reduce the traffic balance the benefits between users, and service providers
volume caused parking cruise. and reduce traffic searching for parking. By placing the
reservation authority on the gate each user has been
3.1. System Architecture and Design identified by the QR code, when user reaches the parking
spot. Host demands for the QR code and verify the details
Fig. 1 shows three components in the smart parking by scanning the QR code. Since user does not need to
model, including parking zones, users and the database communicate with his desired parking lot host to make his
smart parking system. The management system reservation, rather he directly scan the QR code by host
determines the parking prices and broadcast lives parking QR code scanner and verify the details just like a
availability information to users (also drivers). Upon centralized system. Due to this the communication
receiving parking information, the user selects desired overhead of reservation is highly reduced. Also, since
parking lot and reserves a space. As soon as user reserves each parking lot manages its own reservation information,
a parking space, SPSR generates a unique QR code and it makes the reservation requests from users easily to be
sends it to the user. As a result, the state of parking synchronized, comparing with reservation synchronization
resources is changed by users parking decisions. in the system.

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ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Volume 2 Issue 6, June 2014
3.2. Hardware Main System Architecture shows the parking of Smart
Parking System based on reservation. The applications are
The system hardware is organized into three main build on Android Platform. Two different apps are used in
components, the QR code scanner, the central server and SPSR. One is at the user end and another one is for the
the mobile device, as shown in Fig 2. In the following, we admin at the parking lot. The Parking app in the user’s
discuss the detailed design and implementation of each phone is used to reserve space in desired parking lot. User
component, along with the specification of has to first create an account to be able to use the services
communication between them. provided. Once account is created, user can login with its
mobile no as username and password. User can then select
appropriate parking lot and check availability. If free
spaces are available then user can proceed with space
reservation. One user is allowed to reserve only one space.

For booking, user has to enter its vehicle’s identification

number with the start time and end time of reservation.
Once Parking space is reserved, a QR code is generated
which is used for authentication at the admin end. User is
provided with a service that allows user to delay the start
time (arrival time) by 15 minutes. If the user is not able to
arrive within the extended time then the reservation is
discarded. User is also given a chance to delay the ending
Figure 2: System hardware components time. Prior notifications are send to users phone to
indicate that reservation time is about to expire (ending
The system consists of 3 Hardware components viz. 2 time is about to reach). User is then given a chance to
Android Smartphone’s and a Central Server. One Android extend the ending time. Additional Fares are calculated
Smartphone is for user which would have parking App accordingly for the extended hours.
and another one is for the admin at the parking lot for
Scanning QR code. Both the Phones should have internet The app at the admin Fig.4 end is used to scan QR code
connection. The Central Server is connected to both the generated in users parking app at the time of reserving
Smartphone’s for performing various SQL operations. space. This makes sure that only users with reservation are
allowed to park vehicle. Once QR code in user phone is
3.3. Software scanned and is found to be authenticated, database is
automatically updated and respective Parking slot status is
Fig. 3 shows the design of software architecture of user changed from RESERVED to OCCUPIED. Admin can
API, primarily defining the Android application, which is see all parking slot details. Parking slots would be
the central location of the system to user applications and displayed as graphical boxes colored as Red, Green and
functions also the Host application as the point of control White. Each color indicates one of the constraints. Green
and configuration for the distributed system. Primary Indicates slot is reserved, White indicates that the slot is
software elements are discussed in the following. free and Red indicates expired slots. Such expired slots
have the option of delete which would turn them into free
slots.

Figure 3: User API Figure 4: Admin API

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 International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Research (IJSER)
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ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Volume 2 Issue 6, June 2014
4. Evaluation And Results
4.1. Parking Demand and Simulation
In the simulation, we use the real-world traffic traces to
generate the parking demand. Here the parking demand is
the number of drivers who need parking spaces in the
target area. However, in reality, it is difficult to collect the
traffic traces for parking in the target area. To monitor the
incoming and outgoing traffic for parking in individual
parking lot we have considered the no of request virtually,
Here we make a general assumption that real total traffic
for parking is proportional to the highway or street traffic.
Although not all of traffic pursuing parking spaces in
target area are from highways or street, and not all Figure 5: Incoming and Outgoing Traffic
highway or street traffic need to park in the target area, the
highway case can simulate the state of total traffic for 4.3. Experimented Results
parking. We classify the total highway traffic into
incoming traffic and outgoing traffic, which represent the The following experimental results illustrate the efficacy
traffic approaching to and leaving from the target area. and feasibility of the proposed Smart Parking System
The incoming traffic serves as the reference of parking Based on Reservation (SPSR) in a cost-effective way as
demand. Suppose we are having parking lot of 100 spaces shown in Fig. 6
and we are getting the request from the 120 users at the
same time then simulation is done on the how many users
from 100 gets the parking space and how much user not
able to park the car because of delay or some reason, So
remaining 20 user will get that parking space. If in such
condition there are no parking spaces available and
request are coming from users then waiting time of the
user get considered based on how much time user has
waited to park the car. We use the line graph of the
incoming and outgoing traffic of the target area to
calculate the waiting time for the users to park the car.

4.2. Simulation Set-Up

In our simulation, we use the map of D. Y. Patil

Vidyanagari, Nerul as the target area, which is surrounded
by the highway NH4. In this area, there are multiple Fig.5 Figure 6: Traffic searching for parking comparison under
illustrates the incoming and outgoing traffic in two different parking guidance strategies
different days. As we see, the peak time of incoming
traffic is from 8am to 11pm, and the rush hour of outgoing We evaluate the effectiveness of reservation policy in
traffic is during 4pm to 6pm. It matches people’s regular terms of following perspectives:
schedule, in the morning most people drive to work and
go back home after 5pm. Therefore, the traffic trace is Traffic Searching for Parking: The driving distance under
reasonable to generate the parking demand in the blind search is the worst, especially during the peak hours;
simulation. So the time between 8am to 11pm having a PIS and BPIS are better than blind search when traffic
more traffic so obvious request coming from the users will flows increase; and the reservation policy is the best
be more. To handle each user request in a heavy traffic compared with others. An interesting observation shown
can show the user satisfy with the parking service. in Fig. 6 of reservation-based policy is that the average
driving distance is decreasing at peak time, rather than
increasing. That is because, after users learn the states of
parking lots, they tend to reserve the nearest parking lot to
their destination. During the peak hours, most parking lots
are almost fully occupied in central area. Consequently,
users have to select the parking lots in surrounding area,
which are near to their start points. Therefore, it results in
the reduction of average driving distance during the peak
hours.

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ISSN (Online): 2347-3878
Volume 2 Issue 6, June 2014
[6] R. Lu, X. Lin, H. Zhu and X. Shen, “SPARK: A New
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[14] Sullivan and S. Sheffrin, Economics: Principles in
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[15] Hamada R.H.AI-Absi,Patrick Sebastian ,”Vision-
parking spot. GPS (Global Position System) help the user
Based Automated Parking System ”in 10th
to find the co-ordinate and right path of the parking spot.
International Conference on Information science,2010
[16] Sarfraz nawaz, Christos Efstratiou, Celia Mascolo,
6. Conclusion “Parksense: A smartphone based sensing system for
on street parking” in Cambridge university
In this paper, we have developed a new prototype of [17] Amin Kianpisheh,Norlia Mustaffa, Pakapan
Smart Parking System based on Reservation (SPSR) to Limtrairut and Pantea Keikhosro kiani,”Smart
optimize parking management. In this system, we parking system (SPS) architecture using Ultrasonic
implement parking reservation policy to balance the Detector” in International Journal of Software
benefit of service providers and requirements from the Engineering and Its Applications
users. Moreover, we have presented the detailed design, [18] Jung Rock kim,Jang Woom Back,Kyungshik Lim and
implementation and evaluation of the prototype. Based on Dae-wha Seo,”The two tired parking system”in
the obtained results from our simulation study, we international journal,2010
conclude that the proposed reservation-based smart
parking system can alleviate traffic congestion caused
Author Profiles
parking searching and reduce the amount of traffic volume
searching for parking.
Mohit Chandrabhan Patil, Department of
Computer Engineering, Ramrao Adik Institute of
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