IBM Smarter Transportation

IBM cooperates with the cities, the governments and other organizations worldwide to do the transport systems more reasonable. The reasonable transport systems support more free movement of the public and individual transport, allow to predict and to beforehand exclude transport jams, to reduce volumes of emissions in the atmosphere and to increase efficiency of infrastructure.

On September 28, 2011 IBM and Streetline companies announced the cooperation which purpose is assistance to the cities in reduction of transport jams, more effective management of resources of parkings and providing information to drivers for quick search of parking spaces.

Technologies of IBM for information management and the analysis, in combination with the data arriving from sensors on parkings and applications of Streetline, will allow the cities to make quickly more reasonable decisions connected with the parking of cars and the transport systems in general. Representatives of local government will be able to use the solution Smarter Parking better to understand habits of drivers concerning search of parkings for quality improvement of work of city services, increase in income and more effective resource allocation.

Worldwide motorists daily face a problem of search of parking lots. According to the experts, this problem is the reason of 30% of transport jams. Based on the global research IBM Parking Survey conducted in 20 cities worldwide within the last year of 6 of 10 drivers at least once was not succeeded to find the parking lot, and on average drivers spend about 20 minutes for search of the suitable place.

IBM and Streetline will help the cities with the solution of the most difficult transport problems connected with the parking. In the future knowledge taken from statistical and operational data will allow to predict more fully interaction of a system of parkings and a transport network with other city services to understand influence on economic development and trade service, as appropriate to make schedules of public transport and also it is better to plan infrastructure projects or special events.

"Now huge amounts of data which can help the cities to cope with problems of the organization of the movement are available and to increase quality of transport services, including services of the parking — Gerry Mooney, the CEO of global division of IBM Smarter Cities noted. — An opportunity to turn these separate data into valuable information for prevention of the situations leading to transport jams and also more effective service of certain drivers and the companies is absolutely necessary for the cities".

"Drivers face problems of the parking worldwide — Yusuf (Zia Yusuf), the president and the chief executive officer of Streetline company marked out Zia. — Ready, completely integrated solution of Smarter Parking will allow the cities to achieve considerable results in the solution of these problems for simplification of a stress which drivers have every day".

New approach to management of the parking

Most of inhabitants of Earth move to the cities therefore loads of the main city systems, including the systems of service of streets and transport transportations, became extremely high. Besides, search of the parking increases the number of harmful emissions in the atmosphere. Based on the research conducted within a year, drivers in 15 districts of Los Angeles passed excess 1500000 kilometers, having developed 730 tons of carbon dioxide and having used 180000 liters of fuel in search of parking spaces.

The integrated solution of Smarter Parking Starter Kit includes means for the organization of measurement, interaction of systems and data analysis. This solution is designed to help the cities to improve services of the parking, to optimize transactions and to reduce transport jams. Effectively using technologies of IBM and Streetline, the cities will be able:

• Provide information in real time that inhabitants and city visitors could find parking lots more simply;
• Collect, analyze and use for decision making information on resources and services of the parking for the purpose of increase in income;
• Analyze up-to-date information that it is more effective to model and predict problems with the purpose of reduction of transport jams, to develop schemes of pricing for parkings taking into account demand and to provide to citizens better services;
• Integrate the up-to-date information arriving from parkings on the main and side streets to support collective decision making for the accelerated response to different events and also changes available of empty parking spaces and demand for them.

The platform developed and patented by Streetline company for intellectual management of services of the parking detects the parked car, using a wireless network of the sensors placed on parkings with the ultralow level of energy consumption. This information in real time is provided to city services and consumers using the free application for the Parker™ smartphones distributed through iTunes Store or Android Market.

Using the data arriving from parkings in real time and advanced technologies of the analysis of IBM Cognos, the cities will be able to use this information for understanding of important factors of the organization of the transport system, including the employment level of parking spaces on hours and quarters, duration of the parking and a trend for different districts of the city.

In November, 2010 the Streetline company became the winner of the world final of the tender IBM SmartCamp and was awarded ranks IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year (The entrepreneur of year). The release of the presented solution became result of cooperation of Streetline with division of IBM Venture Capital Group directed to expansion of business of the company and opening of new opportunities for joint work.