Ethan Hudgins: ejh2195@columbia.edu
Will Reis: war2120@columbia.edu

Project Description

This study will examine the practicality of reliance on sensors for rapid deployment and data collection of parking resource use for cities. This project is predicated on the idea that parking surveys require significant manpower for data collection, as well as significant time to produce the data on what parking spaces are used and how frequently. This project seeks to create a sensor that can be rapidly deployed across a wide urban landscape, and within a few hours identify where demand pricing or other parking management policies could be employed to rectify issues such as continuous circling, low turnover, or even too high of a price.

What data is being collected, and why.

The sensor being deployed is effectively a radar (radio waves); the sensor sends and receives these waves in a grid that can tell us where (and possibly what) is in the parking space. We are hoping to be able to reliably estimate if the spot is empty or if there is any sort of vehicle in the spot, including scooters. The data will inform us how often a parking spot is occupied, the rate of turnover. From this, we can acquire an occupancy rate, and we can make recommendations from the information. In the future, these could be rolled out for several days and accomplish a much more voluminous and reliable set of data, with much less manpower from the consultant side.

Harms to subject/public, if any.

There are no anticipated harms to the public. The only major concern we have is the possibility that this is a tripping hazard, and the public could get sued for deploying sensors on the side of curbs that could trip people. Additionally, we are concerned about the vandalism of these sensors. The data being collected has no identifying information to individuals, and cannot produce harm to the public in any conceivable way.