Zia Yusuf is driving down Vine Avenue, en route to a parking space.
He doesn’t have to search hard. He knows there are two available spaces on the next street at this very moment. It’s not that he can see ahead to the open space: His iPhone showed him the available space, via the $1.99 Parker app from Streetline.
“Let’s pull in over here,” Yusuf says, as he nabs the spot on Yucca Street and inserts his credit card for two hours of parking.
Yusuf is CEO of Streetline, a San Francisco company trying to bring the concept of parking into the 21st century, and he’s come to Los Angeles to meet with city officials.
Amir Sedadi, the interim general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, is here as well, and he says he signed up for Streetline’s concept as a way to cut down on folks circling streets forever in search of spaces.
“This is a creative way of showing real-time parking availability,” Sedadi says. “It’s a good way to use technology to help the public — how can I find a parking space faster?”
How Parker works: Streetline installed battery-powered sensors in parking spaces in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, a 20-block area. The sensors communicate with a receiver on a nearby lamp pole, which connects to a data center in Dallas, which in turn communicates with the iPhone app.
Each sensor costs $300 for installation plus a $120 yearly software license fee.
The app shows the number of open parking spaces on any given street and directs you to them via Google Maps. Yusuf hopes to see his technology used on all phones, navigational devices and anywhere mapping info is used.
So far, Streetline has sold around 1,400 copies of the app in Los Angeles. Parker has also launched on Roosevelt Island in…