ABOUT
Mission
Tulane is a dramatically growing university with a decreasing number of parking spaces. Because of this we wanted to create an app that would alleviate some of the pain that comes with parking. There are many parking apps out there but what makes ours different is the ability to find free parking. This app will mainly target Tulane faculty, staff, students, and visitors. We understand that it might not solve every person’s parking problem, but we hope that it can remove some of the difficulty that comes with parking in a crowded area.
parking
Our Concept
Our app is a crowd-sourced map of available on-campus and nearby off-campus parking spots. There is an artificial intelligence implementation to 1) help you find a parking spot nearby your destination as you arrive at campus and 2) help determine the likelihood that the parking spot is open based off of app data and intelligence surrounding non-app users patterns.
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The user makes an account, checks in to a parking spot on the app (thus claiming it) while they are parked, checks out of the parking spot when they leave, and has the ability of reporting newly found spots to the application to grow the map.
design Thinking:
This project first required the organization of a design thinking workshop. The design thinking workshop's main goal was to identify problems and then come up with solutions that would involve AI. The step allowed for collaboration with the Taylor Center, with them supplying us with useful resources and suggestions for how to apply design thinking to our brain storming. With these materials we were able to brain storm ideas for our project and make sure that everyones ideas were heard. This technique for creating project ideas made us think quickly and utilize the first ideas that came to our head rather than overthinking the whole process. It was a process that reminded each of us to stop overthinking and that what we were concerned about could be saved for consideration later. From this we all came out of the experience in agreement that design thinking was something that we would work to apply to other aspects of our lives!
Phase 1
Build the Map
Step 1: Identify a server to host the app and the website.​
Step 2: Create the preliminary map that has all specified functions.
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Step 3: Work with Tulane parking services to fully understand how their parking works.
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Phase 2
Expand Map Through Crowd Sourcing
Step 2: Using the information gained from checking in/out of spaces, have algorithms to calculate the percentage of parking spaces that have been taken vs percentage that are open in a specific area.
Step 1: Implement elements into the app that allow users to take a parking space and leave a parking space.
The above screenshot shows our prototype of the app and the ability of the user to input their destination in order to find near by free parking.
The first two screenshots show the ability of users to input a newly found parking spot into the app’s map. They can drop a pin on the google map of where the location is and fill out other information like the space’s size, availability, and whether that location is free or paid parking.
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The third screenshot shows how the artificial intelligence portion of the app will gather information about parking spots from the user’s reports of if a parking spot is available or taken.
Phase 3
Apply Machine Learning
Step 1: Fully implement artificial intelligence aspects into the app.
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​Step 2: Use the data gathered from the crowd sourcing to guess the times that spots are filling up, or that people are leaving their spots.
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Step 3: Predict a spot for the user.
The first screen shot on the left shows the capability that the AI component will provide to the app, displaying the possibility of availability of specific spots during different times of the day.
After viewing our design, please tell us your
THOUGHTS & FEEDBACK
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