The 8th EAI International Conference on Mobile Computing, Applications and Services

Research Article

On-The-Fly Curbside Parking Assignment

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.30-11-2016.2267101,
        author={Abeer Hakeem and Narain Gehani and Xiaoning Ding and Reza Curtmola and Cristian Borcea},
        title={On-The-Fly Curbside Parking Assignment},
        proceedings={The 8th EAI International Conference on Mobile Computing, Applications and Services},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={MOBICASE},
        year={2016},
        month={12},
        keywords={parking assignment travel time social welfare mobile app},
        doi={10.4108/eai.30-11-2016.2267101}
    }
    
  • Abeer Hakeem
    Narain Gehani
    Xiaoning Ding
    Reza Curtmola
    Cristian Borcea
    Year: 2016
    On-The-Fly Curbside Parking Assignment
    MOBICASE
    ACM
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.30-11-2016.2267101
Abeer Hakeem1, Narain Gehani1, Xiaoning Ding1, Reza Curtmola1, Cristian Borcea1,*
  • 1: New Jersey Institute of Technology
*Contact email: borcea@njit.edu

Abstract

This paper presents Free Parking System (FPS), a system for assigning free curbside parking spaces to drivers in the cities. FPS has two components: a mobile app running on the drivers' smart phones that submits parking requests and guides drivers to their parking spaces, and a server that manages the parking assignment process. Unlike existing parking systems, FPS is cost-effective as it does not rely on any sensing infrastructure and reduces parking space contention because it provides individual space assignments to drivers. The main novelty of FPS consists of its parking assignment algorithm, FPA, which combines a system-wide social welfare objective with a modified compound laxity algorithm to minimize the total travel time for all drivers. Furthermore, FPS adapts on-the-fly to new parking requests and to parking spaces occupied by drivers who do not use our system. The simulation results demonstrate that FPA reduces the total travel time by factor of 4 when compared to a baseline that mimics the way people search for parking today. It also reduces the travel time by 42% when compared to a greedy parking assignment algorithm. Furthermore, FPA provides substantial improvements even when many parking spaces are occupied by drivers who do not use FPS.