[Sigia-l] High Tech Parking

[jane at janeforshort.net]

> An airport near us recently unveiled their "Smart Park" system (details
> below).  I have yet to try it out but the "user interface" seems
> slightly daunting and I wonder how usable it is.

We have this at a garage here in San Francisco that I park in
occasionally. I LOVE this system. Instead of driving back and forth along
each row, on 6 or 8 levels, looking for a spot, I see the sign as I
approach the level entrance: LEVEL FULL. If a level only has 2 spots, I
keep going in case the reason there are only 2 is that a big SUV is taking
more than their share of the space. Then, ah joy, I see: 36 SPACES
AVAILABLE and know it will be easy to park. Even though I only use one
garage with this technology, I have rapidly come to resent all other
parking garages for not employing it. It reduces congestion in the garage
by eliminating most of the slow-driving parking-seekers on levels that
don't have enough spots to keep them moving along. Seriously, not daunting
at all.
Jane