Fort Lauderdale and Streetline Launch Smart Parking App Parker™ in Florida

The City of Fort Lauderdale is implementing technology from Streetline aimed at making it easier to find parking downtown. Using Streetline’s sensor-enabled Smart Parking system, and Parker™, a free smartphone app, motorists can see open parking spaces in real-time, reducing the time and energy spent searching for parking.

Sensors embedded in the pavement detect when spaces are available. Parker provides the location and general availability of spaces through the use of web-enabled devices, such as a smartphone, PC, or tablet. Once parked, motorists can use the app to pay for parking, set a timer to track how much time is remaining on the meter, or access walking directions to help find their parking space when they need to return to their vehicle.

“The City continues to embrace new technologies to make parking more convenient for our residents and visitors,” said Diana Alarcon, the City’s Director of the Department of Transportation and Mobility. “This project will enable motorists to quickly locate and pay for parking in our downtown area near the FAU campus.”

Some of the notable features of Parker include:

• Real-time information in select areas of the City to guide consumers to open and available curbside parking spaces; Parker updates automatically when a car is parked or leaves
• Voice hands-free feature providing audible cue when available parking is nearby
• Ability to toggle between availability and price, including real time updates as prices are changed or updated
• Easy access to rates, hours and time limits for metered and on-street parking where available
• Ability to enter an address or search by points of interest including airports, universities, shopping centers, featured neighborhoods, transit and hospitals
• The ability to enter an address within Parker and view parking options nearest to that destination
• Mark areas on the Parker map to keep track of where a car is parked (and later get guidance back to the car), set reminders, take a picture of a car and take notes about the location. Parker also saves parking history data for easy access later
• Mobile payment capability via PayByPhone

In Fort Lauderdale, the system is currently deployed near the Florida Atlantic University and Broward College campuses.

“By deploying Streetline’s patented sensor-technology, and the award-winning consumer app Parker, Fort Lauderdale is paving the way to implement one of the most advanced parking systems in the United States—and making searching for parking a thing of the past for Fort Lauderdale drivers,” said Zia Yusuf, president and CEO of Streetline.

Parking Reinvented

Streetline is revolutionizing how cities reduce congestion and emissions by tackling a key, but often overlooked source: drivers searching for parking. Experts estimate that 30 percent of urban traffic is caused by motorists looking for parking. Additionally, vehicle emissions resulting from drivers looking for parking are so closely linked that a year-long study found that drivers in a 15 block district in Los Angeles drove in excess of 950,000 miles, produced 730 tons of carbon dioxide and used 47,000 gallons of gas searching for parking. [*Based on 2007 study by Professor Donald Shoup, University of California, Los Angeles]

Streetline’s patented smart parking platform detects the presence of a car through a network of ultra-low power wireless sensors located in individual parking spaces. By downloading Parker onto a smartphone or compatible tablet, consumers can access real-time parking availability – with icons noting more than four spaces available (plenty of parking), more than two spaces available (some parking), or less than two spaces available (limited parking). The app also delivers information about parking space time limits, pricing, whether meters take credit cards or coins, as well as static parking data for select locations.

Streetline’s parking solutions have been successfully implemented in a number of other cities including Los Angeles, CA, Indianapolis, IN, New Brunswick, NJ, Reno, NV, and Washington, DC.

For more information on Fort Lauderdale’s Smart Parking technology and to download the free “Parker” app, please visit www.streetline.com/park.  Parker™ is available as a free download on iTunes and the Android Market.

About Streetline, Inc.

Streetline’s mission is to make smart cities a reality through the use of sensor-enabled mobile and web applications. As the leading global provider of smart parking solutions for cities, airports, universities, private garages, and consumers, Streetline’s pioneering technology connects citizens with critical information to improve the way they live and work, while making cities more efficient and helping them reduce their environmental footprint.

Streetline is a privately-held company headquartered in Foster City, Calif. with smart parking deployments in Germany and across the U.S. including California, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Oregon, Virginia and Washington, DC. The company was named one of Fast Company’s 10 Most Innovative Companies in Transportation, as well as IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year. In October 2012, Streetline was named a finalist for the prestigious 2012 World Technology Awards.