I just finished my Fall quarter finals, and I have lots of spare time until Winter quarter starts. This is a great opportunity to make some headway on this project.
Revisiting the competitive landscape will help get the juices flowing.
Monkey Parking
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-parking-disruption-20141028-story.html#page=1
This is an app that allows "sharing" of public parking spots. The idea is - when someone is about to leave a public parking spot, they advertise it on the app. Nearby drivers looking for a parking spot will be able to secure the location, but here's the catch - for a fee. There was a similar app (or possibly the same one) in San Francisco that I think was banned. I think its ridiculous to let people profit from a free public resource. It also has the possibility of incentivizing people to hold street parking spots for longer, just to make more money.
ParkMe
https://www.parkme.com/
This app and website seems to have a large database of standalone parking lots. I guess this might be nice if you're going somewhere and you have no idea where to park, and you're willing to pay. There also seems to be a way to reserve parking spots in certain locations. Overall I don't care for such things, and I'm sure most people don't either.
Parker
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/parker-find-open-available/id399573859?mt=8
Seems similar to ParkMe. It also does the thing where it taps into some municipal database to get real time availability of metered parking. Again, not too interesting.
To Park or Not to Park
http://toparkornottopark.com/
This is someone's attempt at creating a better street parking sign. Anyone who's had to confusingly stare at the hieroglyphics that are parking signs knows how confusing they are. These new signs are much more visual and simple. Overall I think this is pretty cool, though I'm hesitant to give it a full endorsement. I feel like there are complex and nuanced parking situations that these signs aren't detailed enough to explain. For example, there are street signs around some LA area schools that restrict parking based on "school days". Granted, these signs don't tell you whether "today" is a school day, but it probably isn't too hard to figure out. How would these signs convey these rules?
Best Parking
http://losangeles.bestparking.com/
Similar to others. Looks pretty terrible.
Park Safe LA
http://www.laweekly.com/2013-09-26/news/parking-sign-decoder-app/
This is that app I talked about in the beginning. It basically shows you pictures that help you understand parking signs and give you info on colored curbs. Just... no. The creator did claim he wanted to do the "take a picture of a sign and have it decipher it for you" thing, but as of this writing, that doesn't seem to have happened. Shocker. (Why am I so mean?)
SF Park
http://sfpark.org/
Developed in San Francisco, the system uses sensors to track supply and demand of (metered?) parking spaces, and adjusts prices accordingly. Great idea, cool implementation. Not exactly in line with what I want, but worth mentioning.
NYC parking
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/datafeeds.shtml#public
New York City has a database with street parking regulations. They also built a search tool to help you find information about a particular location. I thought there was an app that used and displayed this data, but I can't seem to find it. Maybe it doesn't exist, and never did.
(Looks like there's a visual map representation. http://www.nycdot.info/ . Not sure who made it, but it's ugly enough to probably have been made by the City. Pretty cool though.)
Pango
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/nyregion/apps-to-ease-parking.html?_r=0
Another app that works with parking garages.
Others
http://mashable.com/2012/03/14/city-parking-apps/
Some of the things listed, like "Can I Park Here NYC" and "PrimoSpot", sound pretty great and might be encroaching on what I want to do. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) both seem to be non existent. The links are broken, and I can't find them from simple Googling.
(More info on Can I Park Here: http://parkitnyc.com/2012/02/can-i-park-here-app/ - Looks like they had some coverage a few years ago, but where are they?)
Found a random thing called NaVia, which seems like some people trying to make an app that provides "real time" parking data. From the description it sounds like they depend on people interacting with the app, and aggregating this crowd sourced data. Mostly what I found about this are weird small town news websites with articles about how they're trying to get funding. Pass.
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I feel like I've done a thorough exploration of the landscape. And frankly, I'm not impressed. I think my idea is better, and more people will want to use it.
I'll work on a proposal to better outline my plan.
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