UPark - Parking System

About

Finding parking can be difficult. Many lots, like the ones at the University of Utah, are extremely busy and have spots that only become available in short time windows. Many businesses with busy parking systems have tried to manage this problem with individual parking spot sensors, ticket gates, or other hardware devices, but those solutions are cost-prohibitive in the majority of use cases. UPark solves the problem of parking management through an inexpensive sensor and application solution. A UPark sensor is placed at the entrances and exits of parking lots to detect when vehicles enter or leave. The hardware then communicates with an application that gives the status of all parking lots in the system and displays the information in a simple and intuitive map overlay. Additional features like quick searching, navigation, and algorithmic fullness predictions help commuters quickly find an empty parking space within a single lot or an entire parking network. Parking lot administrators also get access to a dashboard for easy management of parking systems of any size, making UPark both a cheap and easy-to-use solution to finding parking.

Architecture Diagram

Download

Download the final webserver and parking lot sensor releases.

Webserver

Sensor (made for Raspberry Pi)

Meet Team UPark

Team Photo

Nathan Gordon (636) 346-2674	Nathan is completing his BS in Computer Science after a successful career in the video game industry, in which he worked as a 3D modeler and senior concept artist. As a Computer Science student, he is particularly motivated by the challenge of courses such as Database Systems, Deep Learning, and Computer Vision. He has a GPA of over 3.99, while working as a tutor and grader for the Math Department. On the UPark project, he is in charge of developing the computer-vision-based hardware sensor used to count vehicles and the machine-learning-based time series prediction system used to anticipate lot fullness, along with other full-stack responsibilities. Nathan is looking for full-time programming work that is challenging and provides the opportunity to grow his skills and knowledge. After graduation, he looks forward to returning to his love of rock climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking, hiking, and digital illustration, as well as continuing his self-learning with various computer science passion projects.
Cam Davie	Cam is almost done with his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science (minoring in Music Technology) at the University of Utah. His favorite courses have been Web Browser Internals, Programming Languages, Database Systems and Web Software Architecture. While Cam worked on many aspects of UPark, most of his time was spent with the database, AWS deployment, backend and frontend. His favorite contribution to the project would have to be the lot data scraper, which scrapes parking lot, pass data and more from spreadsheets provided by the University of Utah Commuter Services and fills the UPark database with real-life data. A close second would have to be sensor hardware metrics, a page on the administrator page with live measurements detailing CPU, RAM, network and other usage for each parking lot sensor. Cam is excited to start as a full-stack developer at a local company shortly after graduation, so say hi if you run into him!
Dominic Utter	Dominic is completing an undergraduate degree in computer science at the University of Utah. His primary interests at the U have been in legacy software and hardware development and database systems. Within the UPark project, Dominic was first primarily responsible for backend development using the Django API framework. He then became involved extensively in other parts of the project, including frontend development in React. In addition to this programming work, Dominic was also primarily responsible for running weekly sprint meetings and managing different project management elements to ensure that different elements of the project were completed within class timeframes. Dominic has two previous degrees from the University of Florida in finance and Chinese language and hopes to find a career opportunity that combines some of his previous education with his latest computer science degree. Dominic's hobbies include playing pickup soccer throughout the valley and he's always looking for more places to play, especially during the summer.
Huy Tran	Huy is finishing up his BS in Computer Science at the University of Utah. His interests include artificial intelligence algorithms, data visualization and full-stack web development. Huy has also worked the last three semesters as a teaching assistant for CS 3505 - Software Practice II. On the UPark team, Huy's main concern is frontend UI design and development, but he was instrumental in setting up the initial development environment for both the Django backend and React frontend. His favorite feature contribution is the admin quicksearch feature, which allows an admin to quickly access actions such as editing a lot, making a system announcement and much more by just searching. He also wrote, directed and edited the UPark documentary. Huy is actively looking for developer positions after graduation, so if you are looking for someone with his skillset, drop him a line!

Product Tutorial

Our software is available for both commuters and parking lot administration and can be opened on any browser.

Mobile Site for Commuters

A commuter who is looking for an open parking lot on campus can load up the UPark website and quickly see lots with open spots on campus.

Some users may like to check on a specific lot, either by searching for it or by roaming around the map view and tapping on a lot. They can also view more detail about a parking lot (like its predicted fullness) by expanding the lot detail window.

Other users who have not been to campus before may want to find the closest parking lots to their classes, which can be done by searching for a building.

Pass holders looking for a parking lot for their specific parking pass may want to filter out lots that don’t apply.

And saving your favorite lot for the next time you visit UPark is easy with the bookmark button.

Website for Parking System Management

An administrator who is looking to modify the UPark system will be greeted with many options for adjusting the system to their needs. The left side of the dashboard page displays all of the major elements of the system as well as some additional system utilities. Upon choosing a section of the system to adjust, a pane on the right of the map will open with more options.

Admin View

Parking lot administrators can easily update lot information, which includes editing entrances and exits on lots and applying hardware sensors to those entrances/exits. This is all done from the lot edit page.

Lot Edit

To quickly move around the menus on the admin website, a quick search bar is provided in the top-left of the administrator view. Commonly-used actions, like editing a specific lot or adding a system-wide announcement, can be accessed easily through the quick search autocomplete menu.

Quick Search

Some of the utilities that are available to parking lot administrators include lot fullness statistics, sensor hardware metrics and announcements.

Lot Statistics

Vehicle Sensor

Our vehicle sensor code is available for installation on Raspberry Pi outfitted with an Intel Neural Compute Stick and Raspberry Pi Camera.

First an administrator would install the provided OS image to the Pi.

Flashing OS

Then they could update the credentials in the configuration file after connecting the Pi to the internet and creating a new sensor on the UPark frontend.

Configuration Changes

The sensor is now ready to be deployed at the specified entrance or exit of a parking lot on campus. Happy car counting!