SFPark iPhone app shows Real-Time Parking Availability in San Francisco

As you may or may not know, San Francisco's SFPark Project has been installing state-of-the-art park-meters and sensors on the ground that can tell if a car is parked in the spot. This information is transmitted wirelessly to their central server. Now this information is available to everybody on-line on the sfpark.org website, or with the SFPark iPhone app. It displays a map showing each street block color-coded depending on the approximate number of spots available.

No more driving around for 20 minutes to find parking! Just pop your iPhone and get a map of the streets with lots of parking in your area. Or, when you need to go somewhere but you wonder if you should drive because you don't know how difficult parking will be, just check the map and see parking availability!

The system can also tell you the price per hour of that spot, and the days and hours of operation. It also works for public garages. Another feature of the whole SFPark system is that the parking rates will change over several months to adapt to usage. For instance, areas where there is a lot of demand for parking will see rates increase. Other areas might see rates decrease.

SFPark.org website

Right now I think the app could use some polishing, the color choices (red, blue, gray) are not great, I would have preferred red, yellow, green, and the colored blocks appear very fuzzy sometimes, depending on the zoom level. But I'm sure they'll iron out these details on version 1.1.

Only one problem though, I can totally see four cars rushing to the same block looking for that available spot... And also, I'm sure the meter-maids will have a special app that will show them the spots where there is a car parked and the time has expired, enabling them to zero in one the poor guy faster than my cat on a hapless mouse.

Here is a cool video of how the system works:


SFpark Overview from SFpark on Vimeo.

More info on the SFPark website.