Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation moots parking app to ease traffic

Visakhapatnam: As the number of vehicles growing rapidly in the city, the citizens are facing hard times to park their vehicles on the city roads. To keep check on all those issues, a Smart Parking application will be introduced by using low-cost sensors, real-time data and mobile applications that allow users to monitor available and unavailable parking spots on the prime junctions in the city.

To resolve the parking issues, Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation(GVMC) is exploring an Internet of Things (IoT) based on ‘Smart Parking’ Project. A mobile application will allow vehicle owners to identify parking space availability. This will also help in reducing pollution and traffic in the city.

This apart, it will ensure more safety with the parking lot employees and security guards containing real-time IoT data that can help prevent parking violations and suspicious activity. People have to spend not only time but fuel in order to search a parking space, especially on the Beach Road, Poorna Market, Gajuwaka, NAD junction, Jagadamba, Dwaraka Nagar, Asilmeta and a few other prime junctions in the city.

GVMC Commissioner M Hari Narayanan also confirmed that the ‘Smart Parking’ project was on the card. The corporation’s website throws light on the details of the project and its benefits soon. Smart Parking involves the use of low-cost sensors, real-time data and applications that allow users to monitor available and unavailable parking spots.

According to the details available on the GVMC official website, the main aim of the Smart parking project is to automate and decrease time spent manually searching for optimal parking floor, spot and even lot. Some solutions will encompass a complete suite of services such as online payments, parking time notifications and even car searching functionalities for very large lots.

The city police also given notice to all the malls and commercial complexes which are using their cellars for other than parking, which spoils the real purpose and it ultimately results badly on the city traffic heavily. Police also observed deviations in many building plans to the sanctioned plans, which also creates traffic hurdles in the junctions.

A senior traffic police said that lack of parking space in the city while the number of vehicles growing exponentially a major challenge for them to control the traffic.