Parking Goes High-Tech with New Wireless Sensor System

By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

You’ll soon be able to find an open parking spot without having to do any actual searching in part of California.

San Francisco is getting ready to debut what’s being billed as the largest mesh wireless parking network ever created. Streetline, a local company, is setting up 6,000 sensors around the city to keep tabs on available spaces and how much traffic is passing by. The data will then be made available via smartphones or online maps and will also be displayed on specially designed street signs.

The sensors will actually be embedded in the streets’ surfaces and will use magnets to detect cars above them. There’ll be wired receivers situated every several blocks that will send the data back to a main server.

Streetline says the system is 97 to 99 percent accurate.