Page 92 - AWSAR 2.0

68 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Reinventing the Parking Experience Through Smart Park Solution
Dr Dipak Gade*
Email: dipak_sg@rediffmail.com
This story started way back in 2015 when I was travelling to Mumbai from Pune. It was indeed a very pleasant day. The sky was clear, the atmosphere was good, and I was enjoying my driving. I was going on a personal trip to Mumbai for a 1-day halt. You know that driving on Pune–Mumbai express highway is really enjoyable and fun. After passing Navi Mumbai and entering into the Mumbai territory in the late afternoon, the driving fun started slowly and steadily turning into a boring and time-consuming journey. Mumbai is one of the busiest cities in the world, and most of the time, its traffic is at its peak.
When I reached my destination, where I had booked a hotel, things started taking a different turn. It was already late evening, and I found that my hotel’s parking was already full.
I was asked by the hotel staff to search for some other parking place for parking my vehicle. Having driven my car for nearly 7 h and feeling absolutely tired, I was desperately looking for a quick nap in my room instead of going out and look for parking. Finding no other way, I somehow convinced myself that it was just a matter of 10–15 min to find an alternate parking place, and I started searching for another parking place. Who knew that it would take more than 2 h to search for a suitable parking place for my car? The nightmare just began. I was not aware of where to look for a parking place, and when I started randomly searching and enquiring about vehicle parking, I found that most of the parking was either full or had reserved parking. After driving for 2 h and wasting a significant amount of time and
* Dr Dipak Gade, Post Doctoral Fellow from Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Quantum University, Roorkee, is pursuing his research on “A Study of Critical Role of Software Engineering with Special Emphasis on Digital and Information Communication Technologies, in Development of Smart Cities”. His popular science story entitled “Reinventing the Parking Experience Through Smart Park Solution” has been selected for AWSAR Award.