EzyPark

Inspiration

Our team aims to reduce carbon emissions from aimless driving around carparks when all parking lots are taken.

What it does

The prototype consists of an electronics component to simulate the parking situation in shopping mall carparks. Additionally, we have developed a mobile application that would be able to keep users more well informed of the carpark availability in the vicinity of their desired destination and aid them in planning their trips to the mall more efficiently.

How we built it

The press of the buttons represents the incoming and outgoing of cars into each individual lot, which switches the parking lot between occupied and unoccupied. This is paired with LEDs that represent the overhead indicator sensor system within these carparks – a green light shows that the lot is available. The availability data from the overhead sensor system of each parking lot will be sent to the firebase in realtime. A mobile application displays the information of the carpark based on the selected shopping mall, such as the current availability of the parking lots, basic rate per hour, the prediction of the availability in the carpark for the next few hours, as well as the layout of the carpark of the selected mall to locate the empty parking lot, so that users will be more informed to plan their route and find an empty parking lot more efficiently.

Challenges we ran into

Due to the covid situation the team was unable to meet face-to-face. This served as a challenge as several components were with different members and all communication was done through teams. In addition, there is a steep learning curve as we are learning new things as the project progresses. This made it difficult to collaborate.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Being able to develop a fully working mobile application with a user-friendly UI/UX design, IoT prototype which simulates the operation of 5 parking lots, and data prediction model which based on actual data despite these challenges.

What we learned

We were able to communicate our ideas among one another despite not being able to meet face-to-face, and delegate work such that we are able to complete multiple parts of the project within a short period of time.

What's next for EzyPark

To collect more data on parking lots demand to be able to recommend and redirect users to other carpark options in the vicinity when the carpark is at full capacity, scale the prototype up to simulate the parking lot of an actual mall, as well as to provide more accurate information to users in real time.