Predicting Parking Lot Occupancy in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

The search for free parking places is a promising application for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). In order to guide drivers to a free parking place at their destination, it is necessary to estimate the occupancy state of the parking lots within the destination area at time of arrival. In this paper, we present a model to predict parking lot occupancy based on information exchanged among vehicles. In particular, our model takes the age of received parking lot information and the time needed to arrive at a certain parking lot into account and estimates the future parking situation at time of arrival. It is based on queueing theory and uses a continuous-time homogeneous Markov model. We have evaluated the model in a simulation study based on a detailed model of the city of Brunswick, Germany.