The great parking space hunt

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2007-10-15

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You can book a theatre seat, a cinema seat or a table at a restaurant over the web. Why not a parking space?

Why not indeed. California-based ACME Innovations has a technology that can make this a reality and it’s already being tried out in San Francisco and San Diego. It’s called ParkingCarma, evocative of the feeling of 'Karma' you get when you find that parking space in a crowded downtown location right in front of the restaurant you’re heading for.

According to parking guru Donald Shoup of the University of California, studies have shown that in the downtown areas of many large cities around the world as much as 30% of traffic results from drivers hunting for parking spaces. ParkingCarma can do something about that.

Developed by ACME Innovation Inc., an applied technology company, specializing in converged communications and dynamic data services, ParkingCarma uses sensors to detect the presence of vehicles in parking spaces and then relays that information wirelessly to its clients, allowing them to reserve spaces in advance of arrival and to pay using a variety of methods – for example paying in advance, or paying on the spot using their mobile phones.

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