Parking Cruise - Keep track of how much you waste looking for parking!

Various studies support that cars cruising for parking are on average 30% of the traffic in congested downtown areas! This further leads to increased fuel consumption, air pollution and wasted time! Parking Cruise provides you an easy way to keep track of how much you waste looking for parking. This application is part of a research project between the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. It continually records your driving GPS trajectory in order to calculate in real-time the distance you have driven. When you start looking for parking, simply report this through a touch-button and we will also calculate and present real-time the total cruising distance. This will help you estimate the time and energy you wasted looking for parking!

How does it work? The ultimate goal of our research project is to understand the parking behavior of drivers in cities. Using the app you can record your driving trajectory. When you start driving simply press the "Start" button and press the "Stop" button when you have safely parked. The key point is to press the "Park" button the moment you start looking for a parking spot. Once you have safely parked and have stopped logging, you can press the "e-mail" button and send us this trajectory. If you want you can cc your e-mail address as well and you can get a copy of your trajectory! In the e-mail you will be able to provide additional (optional) information such as whether you park on-street or off-street, where was your final destination (in order to calculate how far you parked) etc. Our ultimate goal is to get a better understanding of cruising for parking in cities. This is the first step for finding viable solutions to the underlying problems! In our future versions, we plan to develop algorithms that will automatically detect when the drivers starts cruising for parking, thus not requiring the input from the user. Knowing how much you waste looking for parking can help you plan your trips accordingly and minimize its negative effects!

Battery use disclaimer: Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life!