How many drivers does it take to spot an OpenSpot?

Abstract

© 2016 IEEE. The primary goal of this paper is to investigate what could have made successful Google's OpenSpot, a crowdsensing based parking assistance application cancelled in 2012. For this analysis we have developed UPark, a simulation environment capable of simulating large numbers of vehicles, which look for optimal parking spots in busy urban environments and whose drivers might inform others when they take or free a parking spot (e.g. via a mobile crowdsensing based application which allows the drivers to share the exact time and GPS position of a parking event). We introduce also the UPark simulation environment which has the potentials to be used for investigating other crowdsensing scenarios, e.g. 'sensing' the perceived safety level or crowdedness of urban spaces, or public transport related events.