BMW Uses An i3 To Showcase Its ConnectedDrive Intelligent Parking System

Earmarked as the next step in what BMW dubs Connected Navigation, their on-street parking prediction technology wants to meaningfully shorten the search for vacant slots, particularly within cities. 

BMW has always been interested in the connectivity between cars and their owners as exemplified with the company’s development of ChargeNow, ParkNow (intermodal navigation), and was even the first company to offer iPod connectivity in cars.

With its partner INRIX, a leading provider of transportation intelligence and connected car services, BMW aims to unveil a research prototype of this Dynamic Parking Prediction technology built into a BMW i3 at TU-Automotive Detroid (formerly known as Telematics Detroit) from 3-4 June, which is one of the marquee connected car fairs.

Dynamic Parking Prediction is able to leverage the RTTI (Real-Time Traffic Information) system from BWM’s Connected Navigation technology to predict vacant parking spaces using movement data from vehicle fleets. This would significantly lower the search time needed for on-street parking and would cumulatively reduce traffic caused by the ingress and egress of parkers on narrow roads.

For this project to come to form, several thousand vehicles as part of its test fleet to supply anonymous movement data combined with specially produced digital maps that show all available public parking spaces.

The data fleet-supplied data was both of cars leaving parking spaces and of those who were searching for one. Some clever prediction algorithms enabled it to calculate the current parking options in a given area. This information, in its most basic, easy-to-understand format is then shown to the driver via the dashboard display. The more vehicles there are in the fleet to supply anonymous movement data, the more accurate the prediction engine can work.

“There is a clear demand from customers living in large cities for a system capable of predicting on-street parking availability. Through its collaboration with INRIX, the BMW Group aims to continue setting the benchmark in urban mobility into the future. We are starting from an excellent baseline, since most of our vehicles are already equipped with connected technology ex factory” says Martin Hauschild, Head of Traffic Technology and Traffic Management at the BMW Group.