Name me one of the major issues that we are facing daily in Malaysia.
One of the major issues in Malaysia is parking in the shopping mall. I bet most of us agree with this. Finding a free parking lot in the shopping mall especially during the holidays is like finding treasures. It’s somewhat a scarce source if I may say. Some of us probably got into an accident just because we tried to race to get the parking lot.
I thought we have solved this problem, haven’t we?
You are not exactly correct. Some shopping malls have sensors to detect free parking lots and they use light indicators to indicate free parking lots; green light for free and red light for occupied. One of the examples is Sunway Pyramid. |
| Sensors used at Sunway Pyramid source: Vince1.blog.com |
However, the problem with this is that they don’t pinpoint the drivers where exactly the free parking lots are until the drivers can see the green light indicator themselves. And by the time they see it, someone has already waiting for it.
The iPad app solution:
What do you call it?
Find My Free Parking Lot - Advance (a.k.a. FreePark Advance) |
| FreePark Advance |
What does it do?
As far as the users are concern, FreePark will guide the drivers to the nearest parking lot available.
More details please?
Sheesh. OK. Topologically, this is how FreePark works:
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| FreePark on the car dashboard |
- When the driver is near the mall, the driver will open the FreePark app and select the mall.
- FreePark will suggest a number of entrances to go to, and sorted by the best order. The best entrance is calculated based on the most number of free parking lots and the least number of cars that just entered.
- The driver will then enter the parking lot using the desired entrance. Then, the driver will have the following options for mode of payment:
- Manually take the parking ticket from the ticket dispenser machine.
- Use the in app purchase feature available in iOS 3.0 or later in the FreePark application to pay for the parking fees. The ticket dispenser machine will have a barcode scanner or RFID scanner (similar to SmartTag) and scan the barcode from FreePark app or the RFID attached to the iPad.
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SmartTag used at the parking lot |
- Next, FreePark will guide the driver to the nearest free parking lot, by showing arrows on the app itself and saying out the directions. This is similar to how GPS works.
Parking Guidance System soucre: www.parking-net.com
- If FreePark app does not know your current location, the driver can manually enter the location based on the column that he is currently at.
- In the event that the current floor is full, FreePark will guide the driver to the next floor above or below with more free parking lots.
- Once the driver reached the free parking lot, he will then park his car there. FreePark will record the location in case the driver forgets the location.
- Once done with shopping, eating, or just window shopping, the driver will go back to his car.
- If the driver chose to take the ticket manually, he will need to pay for the parking first before going back to his car. Once he has paid the fees, the light indicator at his parking lot will turn to yellow. This is to inform to the other drivers that you are exiting. However, there is an option to disable this as we respect your privacy as well.
- If the driver chose to pay via the in app feature, then he can proceed to his car, worry-free.
- If the driver forgets where he parked his car, he can open up FreePark again, click “Locate my car” and FreePark will guide the driver to his car.
- Once at his car, the driver will startup the engine and drive to the exit. Like entering, the driver will use the same method to exit as well.
Wow, sounds superb! But I think you forgot the part where you explain to us how does FreePark knows where the free parking lots are.
I’m glad that you pointed that out. If you are familiar with the existing solution available at some of the shopping malls, they have sensors to detect free parking lots and light indicators as well. FreePark will integrate with the existing system to know the location of the free parking lots.
OK. So, FreePark will find the free parking lot for me. What if there are cars waiting for those spots already?
Well, this is where another system will come in. With additional hardware, LED screens will be installed at all the parking lots. The LED screens will have 8 spaces to display the plate number of the car that is supposed to park there, or in other words, reserving the parking space.
The free parking lots will be assigned based on the priority, from 1 – 10, where 1 is the highest and 10 is the lowest. The priority is calculated based on how long has the car been in the parking lot searching for the free parking space. The longer the driver waits, the higher the priority. So, FreePark will assign the free parking lot to the driver with the highest priority and close to the parking lot.
What if someone else ignores the LED screen and just parked anyway?
FreePark will inform the management and they may clamp or fine the ignorant driver.
Of course, another option is to install a barrier to prevent another driver to park there, but we are trying to cut our cost here.
Somehow, I think that GPS does not work inside buildings. Are you pushing your luck?
Well, aren’t you a smart one? RF transmitters will be installed on strategic location to indicate the current location of the cars. iPad will have RF readers to identify their current location.
For your system to work, what are the system requirements?
The system requirements are:
- iPad 3G with Maxis' iPad Data Plan (wink2) on iOS 4.0 or later
- Parking sensors
- Light indicators to indicate free parking lots
- SmartTag / bar code reader
- RF transmitters
- RF receiver add-on for iPad
- RFID tag
- 8-digit LED screen
Why do you limit your app to just shopping malls?
Thanks for pointing that out. Currently, I don’t think there are any sensors to detect free parking lot outside. However, one thing that can be done is by using the satellite to capture the images of the parking lots and report back to the app the location of the free parking lots.
One last question, why does your app name have “Advance” in it? Is there a normal version instead?
Well, the sky is the limit. So, this app is designed based on the understanding that anything can be done. Realistically, this app can be done but the cost will be high though. Maybe in the future, this idea can be done reasonably.
So, to answer your question, another version of FreePark is being suggested as well, obviously by me. It is the lite version instead. Full name is “Find My Free Parking Lot – Lite” or “FreePark Lite”.
