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Design and Implementation of a Digital Parking
Lot Management System


Xiaolong Li Uma Kanth Ranga
Elec., Comp. & Mech. Engineering Technology ECMET student
Indiana State University Indiana State University

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Abstract - This project aims at implementing a digital vehicle management system using radio
frequency identification (RFID) technology. This digital vehicle management system will enhance the
utilization of parking space and help user check the availability of the parking space remotely since the
system is connected to the Internet. The project will be implemented in four stages. The first stage
consists of embedding the code into a tag and assigning the same to a car. The second stage is reading
the data from the RFID tag to the microcontroller. In the third stage, the data is uploaded from
microcontroller to the Ethernet network. The final stage is to keep a track of vacancies of the parking
spaces.
I. Introduction
According to the U.S. Bureau of Transit/Transportation statistics for the year of 2006, there are
250,851,833 registered passenger vehicles in the United States. These 251 million vehicles include cars,
motor cycles, SUVs and pick-up trucks. The New York Times magazine states that approximately a
million passenger vehicles are introduced into the roads each year in the United States, which ultimately
leads to a parking problem due to limited availability of spaces. A survey conducted by one of the car
manufacturing company, Bavarian Motor Works (BMW), shows that 20% of the inner traffic of major
cities across the nation is in search of parking space.
At Indiana State University (ISU), 1400 parking spaces are available to the students as against that more
than 4000 parking passes have been issued to students in the year of 2008. The parking system at ISU,
just as the most normal parking systems, does not track the number of cars present in the parking lot, to
say nothing of providing the information of vacancies online. A student has to drive into the parking lot
and to search for available space, which results in a waste of time, effort and fuel.