Sustainable Smart Parking Solution in a Campus Environment

INTRODUCTION: With the continuous growth of cities and its demography, the number of vehicles has also increased in the cities which contributes to a greater difficulty in finding parking spaces. The time it takes for a citizen to find a free space in a car park can be tiring and contributes negatively to the level of air pollution. Smart Parking solutions intend to address this issue by proposing systems that, in many cases, include sensors and/or cameras with the purpose of facilitating the search for available parking spots. OBJECTIVES: In this paper, a crowdsourcing-based approach that makes use of a mobile app for facilitating the search for a parking space in the Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo is presented. METHODS: The solutions intend to lower the time to park and, therefore, the amount of CO2 produced by vehicles of the academic community. Some gamification techniques were used to motivate users to be engaged with the mobile app. RESULTS: A survey was used to evaluate the solution and the app usability. It showed that the use of the app can contribute to reduce the time spent to find a parking space in approximately 50.75%, and consequently reducing the CO2 by the same amount, and it was also verified that the users enjoyed using the mobile app. CONCLUSION: The developed solution shows the efficient use of mobile applications, crowdsourcing and gamification approaches and their role to contribute to a more sustainable mobility.