Vehicle Parking Space Locator with Surveillance System (V-Locator)

Vehicle Parking Space Locator with Surveillance System is developed to help drivers to locate available parking space in a parking area using their mobile devices via Bluetooth application. The system will provide information about the location of the parking space as well as the image of the parking area. The objective of the service is to enhance the existing parking system, to provide better service for drivers in searching of available parking space, and to utilize the Bluetooth application in mobile devices as the medium of the services. The service also looks forward in reducing the traffic congestion, high C02 emission, and the drivers' precious time which are derived from parking surveys activities. The methodology is based on the Rapid Application Development (RAD) model, which is the enhancement of waterfall model, since it is the most appropriate model to be used for fast project development and delivery if high quality system at low cost of investment. The service is hope would benefits mobile users and drivers in lowering thier fuel consumption, saving cost of services, and reducing user's time for parking surveys. The system will be integrating Visual Basic.NET with Matlab 7.0 tools. When a client/mobile user requests for available parking space information from the system via Bluetooth application, the system would respond to the request by providing the image of the current parking lot as well as the exact locations information. The parking area would be captured using Visual Basic.NET and the captured images would be processed using Matlab Image Processing Toolbox

ENHANCING USERS’ EXPERIENCE WITH SMART MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

The aim of this thesis is to investigate mobile guides for use with smartphones. Mobile guides have been successfully used to provide information, personalisation and navigation for the user. The researcher also wanted to ascertain how and in what ways mobile guides can enhance users' experience. This research involved designing and developing web based applications to run on smartphones. Four studies were conducted, two of which involved testing of the particular application. The applications tested were a museum mobile guide application and a university mobile guide mapping application. Initial testing examined the prototype work for the ‘Chronology of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah’ application. The results were used to assess the potential of using similar mobile guides in Brunei Darussalam’s museums. The second study involved testing of the ‘Kent LiveMap’ application for use at the University of Kent. Students at the university tested this mapping application, which uses crowdsourcing of information to provide live data. The results were promising and indicate that users' experience was enhanced when using the application. Overall results from testing and using the two applications that were developed as part of this thesis show that mobile guides have the potential to be implemented in Brunei Darussalam’s museums and on campus at the University of Kent. However, modifications to both applications are required to fulfil their potential and take them beyond the prototype stage in order to be fully functioning and commercially viable

Street Markets Influencing Consumer Behavior in Urban Habitat

This study explores the influence of street markets in urban geo-demographic settings and analyzes vending patterns with ethnic values enhancing the consumer satisfaction. Interrelationship among urban dwellers, marketplace ambiance, and conventional shopping wisdom of customers and interactive customer relations are also addressed in the study based on empirical survey. Research on street markets is very limited though some studies are available on street vendors with focus on spatial planning, political interventions, and legal rights. This study on street markets contributes significantly to the existing literature in reference to shopping behavior and perceptional values of urban consumers..Street markets, consumer behavior, ethnic markets, sales differentiation, market attractiveness, consumer satisfaction

VANET Applications: Hot Use Cases

Current challenges of car manufacturers are to make roads safe, to achieve free flowing traffic with few congestions, and to reduce pollution by an effective fuel use. To reach these goals, many improvements are performed in-car, but more and more approaches rely on connected cars with communication capabilities between cars, with an infrastructure, or with IoT devices. Monitoring and coordinating vehicles allow then to compute intelligent ways of transportation. Connected cars have introduced a new way of thinking cars - not only as a mean for a driver to go from A to B, but as smart cars - a user extension like the smartphone today. In this report, we introduce concepts and specific vocabulary in order to classify current innovations or ideas on the emerging topic of smart car. We present a graphical categorization showing this evolution in function of the societal evolution. Different perspectives are adopted: a vehicle-centric view, a vehicle-network view, and a user-centric view; described by simple and complex use-cases and illustrated by a list of emerging and current projects from the academic and industrial worlds. We identified an empty space in innovation between the user and his car: paradoxically even if they are both in interaction, they are separated through different application uses. Future challenge is to interlace social concerns of the user within an intelligent and efficient driving

The Intersection of Cloud Computing and Smart Cities: An Exploratory Review of Applications and Challenges in Deployment

This research addressed the intersection of cloud computing and smart cities. Cloud computing and smart cities are two areas that are seeing fast expansion and have the potential to transform the manner in which we work and live. Cloud computing facilitates the supply of on-demand computing resources, including storage, networking, and software, via the internet; and smart cities use technology to improve the quality of life for inhabitants and the efficiency of municipal services. According to the findings of the research, cloud computing has the potential to be used in diverse applications within smart cities. Some examples of these applications include smart transportation, smart lighting, smart buildings, smart waste management, smart healthcare, smart parking, and smart citizen services. This study also drew attention to a number of obstacles that need to be overcome before cloud computing may be properly implemented. Concerns around data security and privacy, network and connection, interoperability, dependency on internet access, cost and scalability, and the need for successful cooperation between municipal authorities, technology suppliers, and residents are examples of these problems. The findings of the research indicate that the potential for cloud computing to significantly improve the capabilities of smart cities should not be underestimated, despite the fact that there are considerable obstacles to be addressed. It will be vital for municipal authorities, technology providers, and residents to collaborate to overcome the problems and establish successful methods for adopting cloud computing in smart cities if this promise is going to be realized

Analysis of Illegal Parking Behavior in Lisbon: Predicting and Analyzing Illegal Parking Incidents in Lisbon´s Top 10 Critical Streets

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceIllegal parking represents a costly and pervasive problem for most cities, as it not only leads to an increase in traffic congestion and the emission of air pollutants but also compromises pedestrian, biking, and driving safety. Moreover, it obstructs the flow of emergency vehicles, delivery services, and other essential functions, posing a significant risk to public safety and impeding the efficient operation of urban services. These detrimental effects ultimately diminish the cleanliness, security, and overall attractiveness of cities, impacting the well-being of both residents and visitors alike. Traditionally, decision-support systems utilized for addressing illegal parking have heavily relied on costly camera systems and complex video-processing algorithms to detect and monitor infractions in real time. However, the implementation of such systems is often challenging and expensive, particularly considering the diverse and dynamic road environment conditions. Alternatively, research studies focusing on spatiotemporal features for predicting parking infractions present a more efficient and cost-effective approach. This project focuses on the development of a machine learning model to accurately predict illegal parking incidents in the ten highly critical streets of Lisbon Municipality, taking into account the hour period and whether it is a weekend or holiday. A comprehensive evaluation of various machine learning algorithms was conducted, and the k-nearest neighbors (KNN) algorithm emerged as the top performing model. The KNN model exhibited robust predictive capabilities, effectively estimating the occurrence of illegal parking in the most critical streets, and together with the creation of an interactive and user-friendly dashboard, this project contributes valuable insights for urban planners, policymakers, and law enforcement agencies, empowering them to enhance public safety and security through informed decision-making

Accentuating Accessible Recreation in Greater Worcester

The project goal was to help the Worcester Division of Public Health (WDPH) fulfill the Community Health Improvement Plan objective to increase community member engagement in physical activity by developing a set of promotional tools to increase awareness of local accessible recreation opportunities. To accomplish this goal, we created the S.T.A.R.S. criteria - Safety, Transportation, Access, Recreation, and Social Value - to assess health equity of public recreation spaces. Using the evaluation and scoring system, we produced a set of featured recreation spaces that are publicly displayed using a web page, interactive map, guidebook, brochure, and video. We provided the WDPH an updated RecSpace database and associated instruction manual for updating these promotional resources

Survey of smart parking systems

The large number of vehicles constantly seeking access to congested areas in cities means that finding a public parking place is often difficult and causes problems for drivers and citizens alike. In this context, strategies that guide vehicles from one point to another, looking for the most optimal path, are needed. Most contributions in the literature are routing strategies that take into account different criteria to select the optimal route required to find a parking space. This paper aims to identify the types of smart parking systems (SPS) that are available today, as well as investigate the kinds of vehicle detection techniques (VDT) they have and the algorithms or other methods they employ, in order to analyze where the development of these systems is at today. To do this, a survey of 274 publications from January 2012 to December 2019 was conducted. The survey considered four principal features: SPS types reported in the literature, the kinds of VDT used in these SPS, the algorithms or methods they implement, and the stage of development at which they are. Based on a search and extraction of results methodology, this work was able to effectively obtain the current state of the research area. In addition, the exhaustive study of the studies analyzed allowed for a discussion to be established concerning the main difficulties, as well as the gaps and open problems detected for the SPS. The results shown in this study may provide a base for future research on the subject.Fil: Diaz Ogás, Mathias Gabriel. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; ArgentinaFil: Fabregat Gesa, Ramon. Universidad de Girona; EspañaFil: Aciar, Silvana Vanesa. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Juan; Argentin

Evaluating the Effect of Smart Parking Technology on Campus Parking System Efficiency using Discrete Event Simulation

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of smart parking systems (SPS) on parking search times (PST) in large parking lots. SPSs are systems that disseminate real-time parking spot availability to drivers searching for parking. The literature review revealed discrete event simulation (DES) to be a suitable tool for studying the dynamic behavior in parking lots. The parking lot selected for data collection was a university parking lot with 234 spaces. The data collected included arrival rates, departure rates, the geometric properties of the parking lot, preferred parking search strategies, and driving speeds. Arena 13.9, by Rockwell Automation, Inc, was selected as the modeling software. The base model was built from observed parking search strategies (PSS) of drivers. The model was validated using a t-test for independent samples to compare the PSTs of the base model and actual parking lot. Once the base model was verified and validated, the logic was altered to reflect (PSS) (IV) with real-time parking availability (i.e. simulating the presence of an SPS). The PSTs (DV) for the base and experimental models were compared using a t-test for independent samples. It was found that SPSs reduce PSTs by an average of 11 seconds. This shows great potential for a multi-lot SPS that might save a larger amount of time and harmful vehicle emissions