During high volume periods, it can be difficult to locate a parking location that is convenient for commuters in terms of both distance to the campus in general and to their desired building in particular. This convenience desire becomes greatly compounded during winter months when the location of a parking space will determine the time spent walking in generally inclement weather. In addition to convenience, RIT is committed to reducing our carbon footprint in all ways possible. As indicated by research, transportation is the largest contributing factor to this metric. The purpose of this project is to mitigate the commuters search for a parking spot by providing an easy, yet robust method of determining parking occupancy in RIT’s parking lots

This project tasks the team with designing an active monitoring system capable of tracking the available parking spaces of one lot at RIT. This system will employ sensors at the entrances/exits of a parking area to determine occupancy. The system will be a pilot program for future installments around RIT and will begin by monitoring Lot N.

This monitoring system will be responsible for tracking the overall lot occupancy and display a signal light to the commuters that indicates the availability of parking in that lot. In addition, it is desired that this system also be able to simply act as a counter, thus making it easy for parking services at RIT to employ the system as a traffic data acquisition tool. The system must be able to run off the grid and be field-programmable for lot occupancy or data logging. The interface for the programming must allow the user to input the lot size, choose to monitor or simply count, and contain a count reset option.

The system will only be used to monitor vehicular traffic, thus the design team must employ sensing technology and/or techniques that ensure that the monitor does not incorrectly count objects other than cars. In addition, this system must be designed to operate without destruction, modification, or interference with the current RIT parking infrastructure.

Click on the following link for the Project Readiness Package.

Final Design

Project Name

Active Parking Management

Project Number

P13331

Project Family

Autonomous Systems & Controls

Start Term

2012-2

End Term

2012-3

Faculty Guide

Leslie Moore, Email: lgmddm@rit.edu

Primary Customer

Randy Vercauteren, Email: rpvcps@rit.edu

Test Lot: Lot N

Preliminary Assessments

Systems Design

Detailed Design

Project Review

Team Coordination

Resources

Photo Gallery

Planning & Execution

Build, Test, Document

Project Results & Handoff Information

Technical Paper

Poster

Project Review