Parking Space Guidance

According to researches, in the large cities, such as, for example, London and Frankfurt, the driver on average spends 67 hours a year for search of the parking^[1]that costs it more than 1,250 euros. And about 30% of city traffic^[2] are the share of similar "spinning"].

However the problem consists not only in a lack of parking spaces: so, data on Great Britain demonstrate that some parking complexes are loaded for only 50%.

In the summer of 2019 of the company Ford also Vodafone test the project based on technology of "the connected car" which will help to find free parkings in the centers of the cities. The Parking Space Guidance technology shows to drivers the number of unoccupied places in the next parking complexes and lays a route to them.

"The navigator perfectly helps to reach the right place, but it is not really effective in search of the free parking, especially in the downtown, – Tobias Valerius, the departmental engineer of new product development of the European branch Ford says. – Parking Space Guidance is based on technology of "the connected car" and will help drivers to reach quicker a destination point that saves money and time and also reduces air pollution".

"When machines will be able to exchange in real time data with infrastructure facilities, the movement will become more intelligent, search of the parking will not be such stress any more, and people will be able quicker to reach the necessary point", – Michael Reynards, the head of department of innovations of Vodafone claims.

Parking Space Guidance works with the database of parking spaces in real time and Ford and Vodafone as a part of the KoMoD program (Kooperative Mobilität im digitalen Testfeld Düsseldorf) in Germany is tested. Within this cross-industry project with the budget in 15 million euros are tested the "connected" and unmanned vehicles.

Depending on the location test cars obtain information on a situation on roads, the next parking spaces and dynamic digital road signs from the central processing computer.

Besides, within the KoMoD project were developed by Ford and Vodafone companies:

• Traffic Light Assistance System (the warning system about traffic lights) is the program displaying time before switching of the next traffic light on the display of a multimedia system. Knowledge of the exact time before switching of the traffic light to red will help drivers to adjust speed and to avoid sharp braking that will favorably affect security and smoothness of the movement and also will help to save fuel.
• Tunnel Information System (the system of informing on tunnels) is the program informing on the termination of a band, restriction of speed and slowly moving vehicles in tunnels on route.
• Vario Display brings to the meter panel up-to-date information about large actions which can influence a situation on the road, for example, about exhibitions, concerts and football matches.
• Traffic Control Systems (a traffic control system) helps to improve traffic, adjusting restrictions of speed.
• Smart traffic sign transmission (the warning system about road signs) displays road signs and warnings directly on the screen of the meter panel. In spite of the fact that cameras for recognition of road signs are actively used now, their work can be complicated in bad weather or at the movement near high vehicles. Similar information transfer about signs and noises on the road using the mobile Internet helps to secure the driver during the trip.
• The Bad weather warning system (warning of bad weather) automatically transfers information on bad weather conditions from one car to other participants of traffic. For example, if automatic janitors registered a rain, they will report this information to the closest drivers that those could correct the speed or a route.

Before Ford and Vodafone showed systems capabilities of the notification of drivers about accidents on a route, and also displays of location of the next machines of abnormal services and the most convenient method to give way to them.

Now information exchange between cars is directed to helping drivers to make the weighed decisions during the trip. However information exchange between vehicles and infrastructure facilities as, for example, in the test program KoMoD, in the future can play an important role in development of unmanned vehicles.

Notes