A common problem for all urbanites is finding a parking space, if you happen to be driving. The frustration of trying to find a parking spot has led many individuals to ditch their cars and use public transportation. If you're still a diehard and you have to have a car, parking technology is coming to the rescue by combining machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and mobile technology to give you a heads-up whenever there is an empty parking space. Streetline, Inc., a provider of smart parking solutions, has released a free application programming interface (API) called ParkerData to encourage innovation.
ParkerData will allow developers to add a database of more than 20,000 parking locations across 400 cities to their website, mobile applications, software and other platforms. The developers will be able to give relevant information to their customers about price, location, policy and hours of operation. By offering this application for free, Streetline hopes developers will be able to integrate applications to different technologies such as in-car navigation systems to provide a much needed solution.
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"With the release of the ParkerData API, Streetline aims to provide developers with a playground to experiment. By making basic garage and lot parking data easily accessible and free, we believe we'll see some interesting ideas emerge for how parking data can be integrated into a variety of channels—further opening up the ecosystem of developers thinking about creative ways to make parking data more accessible to everyone," said Zia Yusuf, president and CEO of Streetline.
The company provides real-time parking data in Europe and the United States to open parking spots on the street and garages. As more cities start implementing smart solutions on their parking meters and mandating parking lot operators to do the same, finding a parking spot will be less frustrating.
Developers interested in creating new and innovative solutions can access ParkerData through a RESTful API design and standard JSON and XML data formats. Details about the use and distribution can be found on the ParkerData developer website.
"The goal is to open up access to parking data via a variety of channels. With nearly 40 real-time smart parking deployments in both the U.S. and Europe, we've moved beyond smart parking as a concept to smart parking as a reality. We're excited to see how opening up basic parking data to developers everywhere further accelerates the development ecosystem and the use of parking data as an ingredient," added Vito Salvaggio, senior vice president of Product Management at Streetline.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
