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Okay, so the title might be a little misleading, but we’ll get to that in a bit. First, allow us to applaud San Francisco’s progress on new “smart parking” systems that will, it is hoped, significantly reduce parking problems and congestion.
“Parking problems in San Francisco? That’s ludicrous!” you might object. Yeah, we’re aware that the City has no traffic troubles, but there are good reasons to improve. Some are even statistical reasons.
*In New York City, up to 45 percent of traffic is people circling blocks, looking for a space to stop.
*In a certain Los Angeles business district, drivers looking for parking spent about 47,000 gallons of gas and made 730 tons of carbon dioxide—all in the course of a year.
*Two years ago, a 19-year-old was stabbed to death over a San Francisco parking spot.
So how does Berkeley dust figure into all this? The whole system is based on a wireless sensing technology known as “smart dust” that was developed in part by Cal scientists.
Basically, the dust helps tell parking officials which spaces are occupied, which aren’t, where traffic is congested, all to keep occupied street parking at an 85 percent maximum.
But SF will only test a quarter of its 24,000 parking spaces. When will Berkeley get something like this? And how how will it affect those spiffy Nobel laureate-only parking spaces near LeConte Hall?
Image Source: chelseagirl under Creative Commons
Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone [NY Times]
Tags:it's science!, parking, San Francisco, smart dust, statistics
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