If you go to The Grove, a high-end shopping center near the Farmers Market in Los Angeles, you enter a multi-story parking garage (or parking ramp for our Midwestern friends). When you come in, there is an electronic scoreboard telling you how many spaces are available on each level so you can figure out which level will be best to park on.
My question here is: How does this system work? I’m guessing that each space has a sensor in it that must be triggered when it a car backs in or out of a space?
There is a similar system in place in the new parking structure at BWI airport near Baltimore. Not only does it tell you how many spaces are on a given level, it tells you how many are in a particular row, and each space has a small light above it: red means occupied, green means vacant. Very efficient. There is a small sensor mounted above each parking space which apparently can distinguish cars from empty space; if I had to guess I would hazard that they use some form of ultrasonic ranging.
The only systems I’ve seen like this have a sensor that counts cars entering the car park and another counting them leaving; the calculation of available spaces is then simple subtraction.
The system I’ve seen used appears to be the Signal Park from Schick Electronics. Click on the signal park link in the left-hand frame to find out more.
Thanks. I assume the pollution saving aspect of it probably is a good thing and worth the added cost. I find it pretty cool to watch the scoreboard change all the time as you drive in.