Parking With Your Phone

Know what it's like to circle around for blocks, hoping desperately to locate a parking spot? It's a frustrating feeling, to be sure. Two years ago in San Francisco, a 19-year-old was stabbed in a fight over a parking space.

That incident, and the need to relieve congestion, inspired an ambitious effort now underway in which 6,000 of that city's 24,000 metered parking spaces will be linked in a wireless sensor network that will announce which of the spaces are free at any moment. Plastic sensors glued to the street will detect when a parking space becomes available. Drivers will then be alerted, either by looking at maps on screens of their smartphones, or by displays on street signs.

The phones might even allow them to pay for parking remotely, as well as add change to their parking meter without returning to the car. About a dozen major cities hope to follow San Francisco in deploying so-called smart parking systems.

It's not the first time the Bay Area will turn to smartphone-assisted technology to make its residents' lives easier. Five hundred businesses have signed on to display scannable bar codes in their windows, allowing customers to view restaurant reviews, check bus schedules, download audio tours, and read facts about historic landmarks on their phones.

(Photo by Joe Ross)