User and Operator Friendly Outdoor Car Parking Lot Occupancy Detection (OCPLOD) System Design: Ondokuz Mayıs University Example

Abstract

The increase in global population has brought about significant traffic problems in recent years. There has been a substantial rise in vehicle production and ownership with improving economic conditions and production capacity. People’s desire to go anywhere with their private vehicles leads to significant traffic problems in finding parking spaces. Transportation authorities have implemented various applications to reduce parking problems, but the issue still remains serious. This problem leads to unnecessary fuel consumption and time loss for drivers looking for vacant parking spaces within parking facilities. While sensors are used in multi-level parking lots to address this issue, there are limited applications available for solving this problem in outdoor parking lots. Among these applications, free space detection can also be achieved using the cameras. However, existing software solutions are often expensive and not user-friendly. The also require dependency on specific companies for maintenance and calibration. Thus, users don’t want to use it actively. In this study, user-friendly software has been developed at Ondokuz Mayıs University, which utilizes one or more cameras installed in three selected pilot outdoor parking lots to detect empty spaces based on the captured images. The software allows the parking lot operator to define vacant spaces, determine parking lots, and calibrate them according to their preferences. The developed software also offers flexibility to the user, cost-effectiveness after commercialization, and the ability for the user to make any necessary adjustments after installation. By using the software, drivers’ concerns and time spent in searching for free parking spaces within the parking lots have decreased. Consequently, traffic congestion and delays in parking lots have also decreased, leading to increased fuel efficiency and providing environmental benefits.