The City of San Carlos, CA was recognized as a gold award winner at the Connected World Conference Awards Gala, held last night at the Montgomery Club in Chicago, for their implementation of Streetline's smart parking system.
The Connected World awards highlighted the latest innovations in the Internet of Things including building automation, Connected Car, parking, consumer electronics, healthcare, location-based services, security, retail, utilities, and more. The Connected World Awards honored the companies that successfully leveraged M2M in order to solve a critical pain point within their business, all with quantifiable results.
With nearly 30% of traffic in a city caused by motorists no longer in route to their destination but instead searching for parking, the City turned to Streetline to help better manage their parking real estate. Embedded sensors in the pavement of parking spaces detect the presence of a vehicle. The data is then made available to motorists through Streetline's consumer guidance application, Parker. Parker displays the real-time, on-street information as well as location and policy information for the surrounding garages and lots so motorists have a complete view of their parking options. Furthermore, the app has features like voice guidance for a completely hands-free experience. Just like in-car navigation systems direct the driver to their destination, Parker gives directions to an available parking space, a necessary yet historically unmanaged step, in any driver's journey.
Merchants can also reap the benefits of the Streetline system with ParkerMap, an embeddable map widget that displays the same information as Parker, the real-time information as well as the static off-street information. By displaying parking information on their website, San Carlos merchants can make it easy for their potential customers to know the best way to park and get into their business. This promotes economic vitality for the downtown and encourages patronage to the local merchants.
With the Streetline system instrumented in the downtown core, the City of San Carlos is able to use the data to understand their parking asset use, make policy adjustments to ease congestion and traffic flow, increase space turnover, and offer guidance to motorists and downtown patrons. By better managing parking, the City of San Carlos makes the city a more desirable place to live and visit, encourages a thriving economy, and reduces the environmental and structural impact the 'search for parking' has on a city.