Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

1.2 Structure of the Report

2. Literature Review

2.1. Parking system technologies

2.2 SMS a Ticket

2.3 Cutting the search time

2.4. Mobile Ticketing

3. Initial Investigation

4. The Proposed System

5. The Monash Car Park SMS System Prototype

5.1 The User Interface

5.2 The Database Schema

5.3 The MessageNet Web Services

5.4 Structure of the Prototype

6. Evaluation and Testing of the Prototype

7. Conclusion

8. Future Work

9. References

1. Introduction

With the increase in the number of private vehicles being used by commuters all over the world, finding a suitable car park is becoming more and more difficult. In order to solve this problem, a lot of research and development is being done all over the world to implement Intelligent Car Park systems which would not only be able to provide information about vacant car parks to the drivers, before they physically reach the car park and will also enable them to pay for the car park while sitting at home through GSM based SMS technologies.

The Monash Car Park SMS Project aims to propose an SMS based parking system for the car park at Monash University, Clayton campus. The campus provides its staff, students and visitors a number of single and muti-level car parking areas. Parking permits are issued at the beginning of each year for students and staff, but visitors have to buy tickets for the car park from the ticketing machines located in each car parking area. In the present system, the drivers cannot obtain information on whether parking space is available, until the actually reach the car park. With the Monash Car Park SMS system, commuters will not only be able to receive information about the available parking spaces at the car park on their mobile, but will also be able to buy parking tickets via SMS.

1.1 Background

The project is based on the existing research done in the field of Intelligent SMS based car park technologies. The initial investigation phase of the project involved a literature review of the existing intelligent car park technologies. A survey of the N1 car park at Monash University, Clayton Campus, was done in order to find out the existing infrastructure of the car parking areas at the campus. The survey of the car park showed us that, in the current system most of the parking management activities that are performed by the parking authorities are manual in nature. Customers have to waste a lot of valuable time finding suitable parking areas in the campus and there is no way that they can determine if parking was available at the car parks, before they physically reach the site. Also, the customers cannot buy parking tickets online via the internet or via SMS. The only way tickets can be purchased is through the ticketing machines at the car parks or by purchasing parking permits from Facilities and Services at Monash, Clayton.

The data collected from these literature reviews and the survey was analyzed to determine the feasibility of the project and how the outcomes of the project would help in providing recommendations on improving the existing system. The outcomes of this analysis were used to design a basic structure of the proposed system. This included the design of the database structure as well as the structure of the user interface.

A prototype of the proposed system was developed using C# .Net. The database for the application has been maintained using Microsoft Access. Finally, tests were carried out to verify that the developed prototype was functioning in the desired manner.

1.2 Structure of the Report

The report has been organized as follows-

• Chapter 2 presents a literature review of the existing car parking technologies that are being used worldwide these days. The section presents the current state of the art in SMS based car parking technologies and how these technologies are being implemented in different environments.
• Chapter 3 provides an overview of the results of the initial investigation of the N1 car parking area at Monash University, Clayton. It summarizes the results of the investigation and analyzes the need for a smart SMS based car park system.
• Chapter 4 proposes the new SMS bases system for the car parking facilities at Monash, Clayton. It provides architecture of the proposed system and explains how the proposed system will work.
• Chapter 5 provides information on the prototype of the “Monash Car Park SMS System”. This section gives in depth information on the programming structure of the prototype, the user interface as well as the database schema. It also provides an overview of the web services provided by MessageNet, which have been used in the development of the application.
• Chapter 6 provides an analysis of the prototype and shows us results of a set of test cases which were used to verify the functionality and the accuracy of the application.
• Chapter 7 gives us an overview on the conclusions that can be made from this research.
• Chapter 8 looks at the future enhancements that can be done to the proposed system, which will make the system even more beneficial for the customers as well as the parking authorities.
• Chapter 9 gives out a list of references to acknowledge the work of other people that we have referred to in this report.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Parking system technologies

This article by Smith and Roth (2003), talks about how advanced Car Park techniques are being implemented using the SMS services available on cellular phones. It describes how useful these advanced car parking systems are in providing drivers with information about the structure of the car park system and the spaces available for them to park their cars.

The availability of the vacant parking spaces is calculated by means of sensors installed in the parking areas, which count the number of cars that enter and exit from the parking space. Also, the number of parking tickets issued at the ticket counter can be used to calculate the vacant spaces. All this information from the sensors and the ticket counters is used to update a central database which stores all the information about the areas of the parking space which is vacant or occupied. Smith and Roth (2003) also compare the parking techniques used at various airports in the United States. Among these, the notable ones are Houston International airport and the Baltimore airport at Massachusetts. The parking spaces at Houston international airport have wires embedded at the entry, exits and the various levels of the parking lots. These wires act as sensors and record the entry and exit of the card to update the central database. At the Baltimore airport, there are ultrasonic sensors at the top of each parking space which sense the availability or unavailability of each space. These sensors update the central database. Information from this central database is used to display information at the “way-find” signs at the end of each row of the parking area and advise the drivers whether parking space is available or unavailable in that particular row.

These advanced car park systems also provide advanced, electronic payment options for the customers. The idea behind these electronic payment options is to prevent the customers from having to wait in long queues to but a ticket. “Queues can cause congestion in areas within and outside of parking facilities”[1]. Smith and Roth (2003), in their article, cite examples of mobile parking or “m-parking” facilities that are being used in Vienna (Austria) and Melbourne (Australia). Under the m-parking technology, customers initially register their mobile number, the license plate number of the car and their credit card number with the car park authorities, to create what is called a “virtual parking ticket account” [2]. This completes the initial, one-time registration process. Whenever the customer needs to park, they would send an SMS text message to the number provided by the car park authorities. The SMS message would consist of the license plate number of the car, the location code of the parking area where they want to park and the time duration (in minutes) for which the customer wants to park. In return, the customer would then receive a text message from the car park message centre, with the confirmation and the expiry time of their electronic parking ticket. The customer would be sent a reminder SMS, 10 minutes before the parking time expires. The bill for the parking ticket would come up on the customer’s mobile bill.

Thus, these advanced car park techniques provide the car parking authorities as well as the customers with the following advantages (Smith and Roth, 2003):

ü      Reduction in time spent and fuel consumed while searching for available parking space.

ü      Reduction in congestion due to fewer cars driving around searching for spaces. 

ü      Elimination of queues entering parking facilities because drivers will not go to a facility where there is no available space. 

ü      Reduction in illegally parked vehicles. 

ü      Better distribution of flow and parking demand through the area.

ü      APS systems result in higher revenues and profitability for the parking facilities.

2.2 SMS a Ticket

This article talks about a parking site in Paris called “Issy-les-Moulineaux”, where mobile phones are used by drivers to pay for their parking tickets. Using their mobile phones, the driver sends an SMS to a number provided by the car park authorities. This SMS sent by the drivers contains information about the location of the car. The driver then receives back an SMS which contains advice about the cost of the parking. The driver can then pay for the parking, over the phone through their credit or debit card. After the payment has been made, the driver then receives another SMS which acts an authorization to prove that the driver has paid for the parking.

The vehicles that participate in this SMS based car park system are identified inside by means of a blue tag called the “Issy-Mobile sticker” [3]. These Issy-Mobile stickers are issued to the users when they initially register to use this SMS based car park service. The Issy-Mobile stickers have a bar code on them, which is scanned by the parking officials using their wireless bar code scanners. “The gun-shaped scanner sends the customer identification information via Bluetooth technology to a Series 60 Nokia device, which in turn connects to a remote server via an XTML browser”[4]. The remote server returns all the relevant information about the vehicle to the wireless scanner. This information includes – the registration number of the vehicle, the parking history, the area of parking and the expiry time of the parking. This helps the parking officials to identify whether the driver has paid for the parking of the vehicle.

The system also sends the drivers a reminder message, ten minutes before the parking time expires and also provides them options to renew their parking using the SMS system again.

“This fully automated solution is secure, produces few errors, and lets agents check on parked cars quickly and without removing their gloves in cold weather” [5].

2.3 Cutting the search time

This article talks about an e-parking project being funded by multinational companies in five countries of the European Union, to help drivers buy parking tickets using their mobile phones. Once the project is complete, it will allow drivers to pay for the parking space in advance, using their mobile phones. After the payment has been made, an access code will be sent back to the driver which will act as a validation code when he enters the car park. On reaching the car park, the driver sends the validation code to the main database server using the Bluetooth technology and is granted access to the parking area. The following figure shows us how the whole system has been integrated and is expected to work.

Figure 1 [6]

Cutting the search time

Once the project is complete, it is expected to provide a large number of long term benefits. From the point of view of the business, it will increase the revenues for the car park authorities tremendously. Also, the costs incurred by the car park authorities, will now be transferred to the parking users. This will happen because the car park authorities would have to employ less people to sell tickets at the car park tickets and to check for unauthorized vehicles that have been parked in the car park after their parking has expired. From the point of view of the consumer, this concept of e-parking will ensure them a car parking space available when they reach the car park. It will prevent them from wasting time looking for vacant areas to park their cars, which will in turn prevent congestion inside the car parks. The biggest advantage of this project is that consumers will be able to pay for their parking spaces electronically.

2.4. Mobile Ticketing

This article is based on the mobile ticketing technology, implemented by the ATP SkiData and Smartmachine systems in the United Kingdom. The technology enables consumers to buy tickets for major events such as rock concerts; football matches etc. through their mobile phones. The ticketing technology was successfully tried for the first time at the Aston Villa v West Bromwich Albion match on April 10^th, 2005.

With the help of this technology, consumers can send an SMS to order their tickets via mobile phone. They then receive a return SMS which has an image with a 2-dimenstional matric-code. This SMS contains details such as the ticket number, the mobile phone number and the seat number. On entering the stadium, the consumers have to hold their mobile phone with this image SMS open, in front of the scanners installed by Smartmachine systems at the venue of the event. These scanners validate the users and allow them to enter inside the venue. The consumers are charged for their tickets by the mobile service provider once the 2-D code is scanned at the scanning machines. The following figure shows what the 2-D code looks like.

Figure 2 [7]

3. Initial Investigation

A survey of the N1 car park at Monash University, Clayton was conducted which has led to the following observations-

ü      The N1 car park is a multilevel car park.

ü      There are counters at each entry point, on each level of the car park. These counters provide information on the number of vacant parking spaces at each level of the car park. As a car enters the car park, the total number of vacant spaces is subtracted by 1 and when a car exits the car park, the total number of vacant spaces is incremented by 1. This results in the total number of vacant spaces being displayed at the counters. Sensors are installed inside the car parks, which sense the cars moving in and out from the car parks and update the counters.

ü      There is no central server within the current car park infrastructure which can store information regarding vacant car park spaces.

ü      There are two kinds of parking tickets available for parking in the Monash Car parks-

§         Parking permits issued by the Monash University Facility and Services (Clayton Campus) for Monash University students and staff.

§         Visitors parking tickets which can be bought at the ticketing machines inside the car parks.

ü      There is currently no means of buying the permits or visitors parking tickets, online or by other electronic sources.

ü      Parking tickets have to be displayed by the drivers on the dash-board of the vehicle. Parking inspectors inspect these tickets and fine the drivers in case a ticket is not visible inside the vehicle or if the parking time has expired.

4. The Proposed System

Figure 3 shows the architecture of the proposed system.

Figure 3

The Proposed system

The proposed system has two aspects which will be taken care of. The first aspect will be, to provide users with information about the vacant car park areas. Information regarding the number of vacant car park spaces will be stored in the vehicle counter database which will be updated by the sensors installed in the car parks as each vehicle moves in or out of the car park. As the user sends an SMS to get information regarding the vacant spaces, the MessageNet gateway will forward the message to out Car Park SMS application which will retrieve data from the vehicle counter database and reply back to the user, with the information about the vacant car parking spaces. The reply will be in the form of a text message which will also be forwarded from the SMS application to the user via the MessageNet SMS gateway.

The other aspect of the system would be the payment for the parking tickets. The payment for the parking tickets would be done using a Car Parking Credit Account. Any users who with to avail the car park SMS service would be able to deposit money into the Car Park Credit Account using credit cards over the phone or at the Service Desk at each of the Monash University campuses. The car park credit account would give the users a username and a password which they can use to buy parking tickets through SMS. Users will send an SMS with information regarding their car registration number, duration of parking, the area of car park, the username and password. The username and password would first be used to verify the user. Once the authenticity of the user is verified, the credit account of the user will be checked to see whether there is enough credit balance to pay for the car park. If the user is authentic and has sufficient credit in the car park credit account, the parking fee will be deducted from the user’s account and the parking ticket will be sent to the user via SMS.

Another aspect that needs to be taken care of is that of parking infringements. In the current system, we have paper based tickets which have to be displayed on the dashboard of the vehicle. But in the proposed system, the parking tickets are in the form of text messages on the mobile phone of the user. To check for infringements, the parking inspectors will be provided with wireless hand held devices like PDAs, which will help them access the ticketing database in real time. The following figure shows how this will work.

Figure 4

Checking Validity of SMS Ticket

The PDA will provide a web based interface to the parking inspector who will enter the car registration number on the PDA and will be able to retrieve all the details of the parked vehicle from the ticketing database. This information will include the time when the ticket was issued as well as the duration of the ticket. This will help the parking inspector to analyze if a parking infringement has taken place.

5. The Monash Car Park SMS System Prototype

The Monash Car Park SMS System prototype has been developed to provide SMS based car parking solutions to the Facilities and Services department at Monash University, Clayton. This section provides information on how the prototype has been developed and how it would function in a real world scenario.

5.1 The User Interface

Figure 5

The User Interface

The application is not involve much interaction with the user. The basic function of the application is to receive an SMS and respond to the SMS depending upon the received text message. The whole process is invisible to the user and is being managed in the background by the code behind the prototype.

To assist the parking authorities to check the status of the car parking areas, the application has an “UpdateParkArea Table” button. Clicking on this button updates the table below the button, with information regarding the available parking spaces in the each parking area of the campus.

The parking authorities would also want to check ticketing information about the cars parked in the various parking areas of the campus. Clicking on the “Update Ticket Table” updates the Ticketing table below, with the latest information about vehicles that have been parked, their registration number, date and time when the ticket was issued, duration of the parking ticket and the ticket number.

5.2 The Database Schema

The prototype of the Monash Car Park SMS system uses three different tables. These tables are a part of the “CarPark” database. The database has been developed using Microsoft Access. The schema for these tables is described below.

Table Name: space

Function: Keeps track of the number of vacant spaces in each car park area.

Field Name	Description	Data Type
parkarea	Location of parking area.	Text
vacantspace	No. of vacant spaces in the parking area.	Number

 

Table 1

Table Name: authcate

Function: Used to authenticate users of the Car Park SMS service before issuing them a ticket.

Field Name	Description	Data Type
username	Username of the user.	Text
password	Password of the user.	Text
credit	Credit balance in the user account.	Currency

 

Table 2

Table Name: ticket

Function: Keeps a record of each ticket issued to the user.

Field Name	Description	Data Type
regnumber	Car registration number.	Text
parkarea	Location of parking area.	Text
ticketnumber	Parking ticket number.	Auto Number
duration	Duration of parking ticket (in hours.)	Number
date_rec	Date and time when ticket is sent by SMS.	Text

 

Table 3

5.3 The MessageNet Web Services

The application uses the .Net web services provided by MessageNet to send and receive messages. MessageNet is an SMS service provider which has its own SMS gateway to relay messages.

MessageNet provides web services which can be used to access the SMS gateway and check for any incoming messages. It also provides web services to send SMS to the gateway, which can then be forwarded to the desired destination mobile number by the gateway.

For our Car Park SMS application, MessageNet have set up a dedicated mobile number (+61427842499). To find the number of vacant spaces in a car park or to buy a ticket, customers need to send a message to this number. The message is processed by the application and the customers receive replies from this number. A username and password has also been set up on this number. This username and password is used in the web services to read messages from or send messages to the MessageNet gateway.

In order to read the incoming messages on the MessageNet gateway server, the application uses the CheckReplies2 function of the Receive.asmx web service provided by MessageNet. This function takes the username and password as arguments and returns the message received in the form of XML tags. The following example shows the output received when the CheckReplies2 function is called.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

  -<MESSAGENET>

   - <SMSREPLY>

            <PHONE>61427842499</PHONE>

           <MSG>test message</MSG>

       <DATE_RECEIVED>13/11/20058:56:18 PM</DATE_RECEIVED>

       <DATE_SENT>13/11/20058:56:18 PM</DATE_SENT>

       <TRACKCODE />

          <ORIGINALSENDER>coolcampus</ORIGINALSENDER>

  </SMSREPLY>

      -<ERROR>

        <ERRORMSG>1 RECORDS</ERRORMSG>

     <ERRORNUM>0</ERRORNUM>

  </ERROR>

</MESSAGENET>

 To lodge an SMS via the Car Park SMS application, the LodgeSMSMessage function of the Lodge web services is called by the application. This function takes the account username, password, phone number and the message as the arguments and sends the SMS to the MessageNet gateway. The MessageNet gateway then forwards the message to the destination mobile number.   

5.4 Structure of the Prototype

The Monash Car Park SMS application is based on the following structure. A different class has been defined and used for each function that the prototype needs to perform.

Figure 6

Structure of the Prototype

The prototype has been developed using five different classes –

SMSTool.cs: This class is defined for the user interface of the prototype. The objects of all the other classes are declared in this class and are used to call the functions defined in the other classes.

SendRecSMS.cs: This class contains functions to send and receive messages from the prototype.

Parser.cs: The Parser class contains functions to parse the text inside the XML nodes, returned by the CheckReplies2 function of the MessageNet web services.

CarParkDatabase.cs: This class contains functions that read, write and update data from the Car Park Database and fill up the data grids on the user interface.

Logfile.cs: The Logfile class contains a function that logs each and every SMS sent and received by the database and also logs any exceptions that may occur during the functioning of the prototype.

5.5 Functioning of the Prototype

The Monash Car Park SMS application, polls the MessageNet gateway server after every 5 seconds, to check for any incoming messages. The application uses a server based timer for this purpose. The reason for using server based timers is that “Server-based timers allow you to specify a recurring interval at which an event will be raised in your application. You can then handle this event to provide regular processing.” [8]. This server based timer instantiates an object of the SendRecSMS class and calls the SmS() function of this class after every 5 seconds. The SmS() function uses the CheckReplies2() method of the MessageNet web services to poll the MessageNet SMS. In other words, using this timer, we are polling the gateway after every 5 seconds to check for any incoming messages. The following code shows how this is done.

private void sms_timer_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)

            {

                  SendRecSMS s1=new SendRecSMS();

                  s1.SmS();

            }

The SmS() function stores the text inside the XML nodes, received by calling CheckReplies2(), in the form of a string as shown below.

RecieveSMS.Receive RSmS=new RecieveSMS.Receive();

String s=RSmS.CheckReplies2("coolcampus","monashsms").InnerXml;

The prototype then parses the string to break the text within the XML nodes to get the phone number, the date and time of the message and the actual message text.

Depending upon whether the SMS is to find the number of vacant spaces or to buy a ticket, the prototype queries the relevant table in the Car Park Database to get the required data.

The prototype then replies to the message using the LodgeSMSMessage() function of the MessageNet web services. Below is an example code which shows how the LodgeSMSMessage function is used to send the number of vacant car park spaces to the user.

LodgeSMS.Lodge LSmS=new LodgeSMS.Lodge();

LSmS.LodgeSMSMessage("coolcampus","monashsms",PhoneNumber,"Spaces Available=" + SpaceCount);

Each and every SMS sent and received by the application is logged in a log file called “sms_logs.txt”. This file would help the parking authorities to keep track of all the events taking place while the software is working. The log file keep a record of the date and time of each SMS sent or received. The log file also keeps track of any exceptions taking place while the prototype is functioning. This would help in the maintenance of the application and would help in tracking and removing any bugs that are found while the application is functioning.

For example, to log the any messages received by the application, the SmS() function in the SendRecSMS class calls the CheckReplies2 function of the web service and stores the text received in the form of a string. This string is passed to the receivedLogs() function of the Logfile class which writes the string into the log file as shown by the code below.

public void receivedLogs(string s1)

            {

                  StreamWriter tw;

                  tw=File.AppendText("sms_logs.txt");

                  tw.WriteLine(DateTime.Now);

                  tw.WriteLine("MESSAGE RECIEVED");

                  tw.WriteLine(s1);

                  tw.Close();

            }

The following figure shows a screen shot of the log file sms_logs.txt.

Figure 7

The Log file – “sms_logs.txt”

6. Evaluation and Testing of the Prototype

This section will describe the test cases which have been used to the prototype’s compliance with the requirements of the project. To test the system and show the results, we have used the “Motorola mobile Phone Tools” software. The software communicates with a “Motorola E1000” mobile phone by means of a USB cable. The Motorola Mobile Phone Tools software will be used to send and retrieve SMS from the mobile in order to show the test results.

Ø      Test Case 1: User sends SMS to find the number of Parking spaces available in a particular are of the car park.

      Background

      In this case, we sent a test SMS to find the number of parking spaces available in the M1 car park area.

      Message Format: SPACE <Car Park Area>

      The message is sent using the Mobile phone tools software as shown in the following figures.

Figure 8

Test Case 1

ü      Test 1 Results

            As we can see from the following figure, the application returns a text   message with the total number of parking spaces available in the M1 car             parking area. It also sends the user the format of the message to buy a     parking ticket.

Figure 9

Results for Test 1

Ø      Test Case 2: User uses upper case or lower case characters to send a message.

      Background

      In this case, we use a combination of upper and lower case characters in our message. The following figure shows the test case where the      message is comprised of    characters in lower case and upper case.

Figure 10

Test Case 2

ü      Test 2 Results

      The following figure shows the results of test 2. It shows the output from the application does not depend upon the whether the message is sent in upper case or lower case. The application responds to the received message accurately and reliably.

Figure 11

Results for Test 2

Ø      Test Case 3: User requests vacant space information on a car park area that does not exist.

       Background

      The prototype currently maintains records for only two car park areas in its database. These are parking areas M1 and M2. This test case tests the response of the application if a user requests information on a parking area which does not exist. In this case, a request is made for number of vacant spaces in parking area “M3”.

Figure 12

Test Case 3

ü      Test 3 Results

The following figure shows the results of test case 3.

Figure 13

Results for Test 3

Ø      Test Case 4: User sends a message to buy a parking ticket.

      Background

      In this test case, we send an SMS to buy a parking ticket and test the response of the application to the message.

      Message Format: TICKET <car registration number> <parking area> <parking duration> <username> <password>

      The following figure shows a test message to buy a parking ticket.

Figure 14

Test Case 4

The following figure shows the status of the parking area table as well as the ticketing table before a parking ticket is sent to the user by the application.

Figure 15

Status of Ticket and Park Area Table

As we can see from the above figure, the number of parking spaces available in the M2 car park is 18.

ü      Test 4 Results

The following figure shows the message returned to the user, when an SMS is sent to buy a parking ticket.

Figure 16

Results for Test 4

Figure 17 shows how the ticket table and the park area tables update themselves after the ticket is sent to the user.

Figure 17

Status of Ticket and Park Area Table

As we can see from figure 17, the parking area table decreases the number of parking spaces available in M2 by one, after the parking ticket is sent to the user. The ticket table also updates itself with the details of the new ticket that is issued.

Ø      Test Case 5: User sends invalid username/password

      Background

      In this test case, we send an SMS with an invalid password for the user “test” who does not exist in the database. The following figure shows the test message.

Figure 18

Test Case 5

ü      Test 5 Results

      Figure 19 shows the results of the test. It shows that the application checks the username and password in the database and returns an SMS advising the user that the username/password is incorrect.

Figure 19

Results for Test 5

Ø      Test Case 6: Time taken by application to process an incoming application and respond to the message with an outgoing SMS.

      Background

      In this case, we sent a test SMS to find the number of vacant spaces in the M2 car parking area. We calculated the time delay between sending the SMS and receiving a response on the mobile.

ü      Test 6 Results

      Time when message was sent: 12:35:37

      Time when response was received: 12:35:50

      Response Time = 13 seconds

      The response time can depend upon two main factors -

§         The amount of traffic on the mobile service provider’s network. In cases where there is congestion in the network, the response time could be much higher.

§         The difference in time of the message reaching the MessageNet gateway and the polling time of the application.

      We know that the application polls the MessageNet gateway after every 5 seconds. Let us suppose that the application last polled the server at 12:35:35 and the next polling interval is at 12:35:40. If       the MessageNet gateway receives the message at 12:35:37, the message will have to wait 3 seconds, to be processed by the application. On the other hand, a message received just at the          polling time of the application (12:35:40 in this case), will be processed by the application straightaway.

7. Conclusions

In this report, we analyzed the various car parking technologies being used worldwide with an aim to propose a smart car parking management system for Monash University, Clayton campus. The review of the car parking technologies helped us analyze, how these technologies could be implemented in the current scenario at Monash Clayton.

Based on this research we have been able to propose a new parking management system for the campus and have been able to develop a prototype of the Monash Car Park SMS system. The prototype would help the parking authorities as well as the customers of the car park in the following ways-

ü      Reduction in time as well as fuel spent by customers to search for parking spaces. Customers would now be able to find the number of parking spaces in each parking area through SMS, without physically reaching the parking space.

ü      Reduction in congestion caused due to cars driving around and looking for parking spaces.

ü      Reduction in the number of queues outside parking areas which are full, as drivers would now be able to know about the status of parking areas beforehand via SMS.

ü      Facility to buy tickets via SMS, which would save customers from looking for change to buy tickets at the ticketing machines.

8. Scope for Future Work

The current system at Monash University, Clayton as well as the proposed system, can only provide users with information about the total number of parking spaces available in a particular car parking facility. They cannot direct users to a particular parking bay in a car parking area. This is because, the parking facilities do not have any technologies which can sense if a parking bay is vacant or is occupied.

The proposed system can be expanded to provide users with information about the exact parking bay where they can park their cars. Figure 20 shows how the system will work.

Figure 21

Future Work on the Monash Car Park SMS System

Light sensors will be installed at each parking bay in each car parking area of the campus. As shown in the figure above, the transmitter for the light sensor will continuously transmit a beam of light. If the parking bay is occupied by a vehicle, the beam of light will not reach the receiver, as it will be blocked by the vehicle. The receiver will update the parking database with the information that this particular parking bay is occupied. If the parking bay is vacant, the receiver will be able to sense the beam of light from the sensor and will update the parking table with information that the parking bay is vacant.

This approach will help drivers to get accurate information about the exact place where they can park their cars and will help them save much more time.

9. References

[1]&[2]. Smith L. & Roth H. (2003). “Parking Systems Technologies”. Retrieved on 11 August 2005from

http://www.calccit.org/itsdecision/serv_and_tech/Parking_Systems_Technologies/parkrep_print.htm

[3]. “SMS a ticket?” (22 November 2004), Analysphere, Retrieved on 11 August 2005from

http://www.analysphere.com/22Nov04/technology.htm

[4]&[5]. Forum Nokia (2004). “Issy Mobile - A Wireless Payment Solution For Parking Authorities”, Version 1.0, 1-12.

[6]. “ E – parking poster presentation “ (May 2002), ERF (European Union Road Federation), Retrieved on 14 August 2005 from

http://www.erf.be/content/general/detail/2377

[7]. “Media first at Villa Parkfor new mobile ticketing trial” (11 April 2005), SkiData – Access Unlimited, Retrieved on 13 August 2005from

http://www.skidata.com/en/company/news/apt_villa_m-ticketing.asp

[8]. “Introduction to Server Based Timers” (2005), Microsoft MSDN Library, Retrieved on 14 November 2005 from

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html/vbconserverbasedtimers.asp