Drivers can spend, on average, more than a 24 hours each year looking for parking spaces, according to a new study commissioned by Ford.<\/p>\n
The stress of searching for elusive empty bays in busy car parks may one day be a thing of the past, thanks to new \u201ccollaborative parking\u201d technology being tested on the streets \u2013 and in the car parks \u2013 of Milton Keynes, in the UK.<\/p>\n
‘Collaborative parking’ is powered by data from the parking sensors of vehicles using the car park. This informs the map that shows which spaces may be free \u2013 and can also incorporate data from the car parks\u2019 own monitoring systems.<\/p>\n
“We understand how much wasted time and unnecessary stress is caused by searching for parking spaces in towns and cities,” said Christian Ress, supervisor, Automated Driving Europe, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering.<\/p>\n
“With our research into \u2018collaborative parking\u2019, we see an opportunity to hand that time back to drivers, helping them enjoy happier, healthier and more efficient journeys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ford is among project partners to have developed ‘collaborative parking’ and other technologies as part of the UK Autodrive project \u2013 a \u00a320 million government-sponsored programme taking self-driving and connected-car technologies from the test track to the streets.<\/p>\n
This video explains how it all works:<\/p>\n