Smart Parking System (SPS): An Intelligent Image-Processing Based Parking Solution

Abstract

The proliferation in the number of vehicles on the road are causing traffic problems. Existing transportation infrastructure and car park facilities are unable to cope with this influx. Drivers struggling to park their vehicles is a usual scenario witnessed at peak parking times causing waste of precious time and energy. Intelligent parking systems for meeting near-term parking demand are a must-have for developing smart cities. Goals of intelligent parking systems include counting the number of parked cars, and identifying the available locations. In this paper, we propose an intelligent parking system using real-time image processing techniques. Features of the proposed system include vacant parking space detection, detection of improper parking, display of available parking spaces, and directional indicators toward different types of parking spaces (vacant, occupied, reserved and handicapped). The system leverages the existing video surveillance infrastructure to capture, process image sequences and provide guidance and information to the drivers.