BMW ConnectedDrive now looks to predict on-street parking

BMW, among the first carmakers to drive the importance of connectivity between cars, drivers and their surroundings with its ConnectedDrive, is further expanding its position as a premium mobility provider.

Now, with the Dynamic Parking Prediction research project, the BMW Group is demonstrating a solution that will in future be able to shorten the search for vacant on-street parking, particularly in cities. Together with its partner INRIX, a global provider of transportation intelligence and connected car services, it will present a research prototype of this application at TU-Automotive Detroit (formerly Telematics Detroit), one of the world’s leading connected car fairs, from June 3-4 June 2015, in a BMW i3.

Dynamic Parking Prediction is able to predict parking availability using movement data from vehicle fleets. In this way the application is able to shorten the search for vacant on-street parking, particularly in cities, and provides an effective way of reducing parking-related traffic.

For the purposes of this project, up-to-date digital maps were produced showing all public parking spaces, while several thousand vehicles from a test fleet supplied anonymous movement data generated when using these spaces. Data was supplied by fleet vehicles both when leaving a parking space and also when searching for a space.

Based on the digital map, the local prediction algorithm and the parking data from the fleet vehicles, the research application calculates current parking options in a given area, for example a particular part of town. This information is then presented on the dashboard display. The number of currently vacant parking spaces and the number of drivers looking for parking are both factored into the calculation.

Even when the system is restricted to using data just from the fleet vehicles it achieves reliable results – and prediction accuracy increases in step with the number of vehicles supplying data. In this way Dynamic Parking Prediction will be able to help BMW drivers obtain exactly the information they need to home in on parking areas where fewer other road users are simultaneously searching for parking. This will ease pressure on both drivers and local residents.

With the DriveNow fleet vehicles the BMW Group is collecting further useful experience. This parking information service could potentially be rolled out to all other vehicles in the car-sharing fleet in the near future.

“There is a clear demand from customers living in large cities for a system capable of predicting on-street parking availability. Through its collaboration with INRIX, the BMW Group aims to continue setting the benchmark in urban mobility into the future. We are starting from an excellent baseline, since most of our vehicles are already equipped with connected technology ex-factory,” says Martin Hauschild, Head of Traffic Technology and Traffic Management at the BMW Group.