ParkingLotManagmentSystem

Parking Lot Managment System school project at UNC CHARLOTTE

Team Details:

Team 6

Indu Bhagavatula Sujith Babu Alahari Deepak Sundar Vijayan Sarat Chandra Karumuri

Parking as an Industry from Commercial perspective: According to the International Parking Institute, "parking is a $25 billion industry and plays a pivotal role in transportation, building design, quality of life and environmental issues Some airports charge more for parking cars than for parking aircraft. (An extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking#Biggest_projected) According to the stats published in https://www.parking.org/media/overview-of-the-us-parking-industry.aspx, in the year 2007 there were about 136,000,000 passenger cars in the United States and about 96% of the time these vehicles are parked. Thus Parking control is primarily an issue in relatively densely populated and relatively advanced countries where the demand/supply situation for parking spaces makes parking facilities dear and difficult. As citied in http://pipta.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Parking-Problems-and-Creative-Solutions.pdf some of the most common parking issues include:

1. Inadequate information to the motorists on parking space availability and price. Motorists are likely to be frustrated when they find they there is no parking available or have to spend extra money than expected.
2. Inefficient use of existing parking capacity.
3. Inconvenient parking options as parking within a reasonable walking distance (3 blocks) is hard to find during specific times of the day
4. Confusing parking policies. Regulations and fees apply at certain time of the day but not others. Parking subsidies may be offered to some users but not others.
5. Difficulties with parking regulation and pricing often causes traffic congestion as motorist cruises for parking or stop in a traffic lane to wait for a space.
   Some of the recommended solutions include:
6. Improve information for motorists about the number of parking availability and price
7. Increase the range of parking convenience and price levels available to consumers by developing more time and payment options.
8. Mixed use parking: A commercial store or a shopping mall can collaborate with the nearest residential area/churches and use some parking lots to meet the peak hours demand.
9. Park once and walk: Focused on centralized shared parking that will help in parking the vehicle once and reach multiple places on foot. Typically useful in CBDs and University environments
10. If the parking lots are far from the main/centralized complexes then provide shuttle services and it is equally important to advertise the shuttle services.

  Product Overview: We intend to build an “Online Parking Reservation System” web application that can be easily installed and used by an Organization – can be University, Shopping mall, Private or Public parking facilities. The entities will publish the information available about parking spaces, prices based on the amount of time required and duration of the day. The solution also allows the organization to highlight the facilities available to the motorists. End users of the system:

1. Motorist: Pre-dominantly Motorists/Car owners. Can be Faculty/Student member of the university, Visitor of an organization or shopping mall, Employee of an organization or shopping mall, visitor of a public/private parking space. Note: The motorist can have physical disabilities so this should be taken into consideration while allocating a parking space.
2. Owner: Someone from the organization responsible for maintaining and administrating the parking lot. Motorists being one of the main users of the system will access the Organization’s parking reservation system to reserve a space and pay for the same well in advance. The system will present the motorist various parking options available to the motorists indicating the pricing, mode of parking and other facilities available from which the most convenient one can be chosen. Once the user confirms and pays, a place will be reserved. Thus the motorist is assured of a parking place and need not hunt for a place after reaching the destination and more importantly need not worry about the payment. The solution also allows the motorists to provide feedback and overall satisfaction levels which can be used for advertising and increase the popularity. The solution also provides the Parking lot owner to generate reports i. To find out the effective usage of parking lots at various times of the day ii. To identify the most business giving motorists - visiting customer/visitor and offer some special subsidies iii. To identify customers/visitors/employees who can be a part of carpooling.

  Expected Features of the system “Online Parking Reservation System”:

1. One Time Reservation: The system shall allow a motorist to make an on demand one time reservation for parking. The system shall allow the user to select the parking of his preference by providing pricing, location and other facilities available.

2. Cancellation of One Time Reservation: The system shall allow a motorist to cancel a request for reservation that was previously made any time before 2 hours from the commencement of the reservation time. Money should be credited back to the user’s account.

3. Term Reservation: The system shall allow a motorist to reserve a parking for a specified duration of the day, every day for a term of 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and 180 days

4. Cancellation of Term Reservation: The system shall allow a motorist to cancel the term reservation done previously in full any time before 2 hours from the commencement of the reservation time. Money should be credited back to the user’s account.

5. Partial Cancellation of Term Reservation: The system will allow a motorist to relinquish the reservation for a particular day acquired through bulk reservation. Money should be credited back to the account.

6. Feedback from Motorist: The system shall gather feedback from the user about the facilities and maintenance of the parking lot. All the above activities will involve e-mail confirmation/acknowledgment to the customer after completion of the transaction.

7. Transaction History: The system shall allow the motorist to view the list of all reservations made and e-mail the summary if required.

8. Addition of new parking lot: The system shall allow the owner of the parking lot to add new parking lot spaces into the system. New parking lots may result an expansion of existing parking lots or may be by negotiating with residential or by renting out parking services

9. Inform Motorists about unavailability in case of maintenance: The system shall allow the owner to inform the motorists who have already reserved the space about the unavailability in case of unavoidable maintenance activity and money should be refunded. For the motorists trying to reserve a new slot these should be unavailable.

10. Allow special discounts to the motorist: Owner can extend some special discounts to the motorists to gain some repeat business and value the customer association

11. Parking lot Usage Report: A report to identify effective usage of all the parking lots for every month can be checked. The report shall quantify number of hours of usage, number of hours of non-usage, number of hours of unavailability due to maintenance activity

12. Most valued Customers Report: Report to identify the most valued motorists, who are giving business above a specified threshold.

13. Total Income Report: Should include total amount of revenue generated and also the amount refunded due to cancellations and maintenance outages