Smart Parking is a parking strategy that combines technology and human innovation in an effort to use as few resources as possible—such as fuel, time and space—to achieve faster, easier and denser parking of vehicles for the majority of time they remain idle.

Smart parking, in simple terms, is using technology to find out which parking spaces are occupied or available and often using this data to create a real time parking map.

To find available or occupied spaces, sensors can be embedded into the ground or cameras can be installed on light poles, building exteriors, etc. Image detection software turns pictures from installed cameras into real time occupancy data. Sensors detect the presence of a vehicle in a particular parking spot.

You may have seen parking garages equipped with small lights above each parking space that are red when a spot is taken and green if a spot is available. This is enabled by sensors above each spot that detect if a car has occupied the space. This helps drivers looking for parking find an open spot more quickly and cuts down on congestion inside parking structures.