Parking information aggregation platform

• US 8,665,118 B1
• Filed: 04/20/2012
• Issued: 03/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Woodard, Jason, Catalano, Joseph, Kotler, Ryan, Rogal, Adam Richard
• Primary Examiner(s): CROSLAND, DONNIE L
• Application Number:
  US13/452,162
• Time in Patent Office: 683 Days
• Field of Search: 340/932.2
• US Class Current: 340/932.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/141 with means giving the indication of available parking spaces
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/143 inside the vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/144 on portable or mobile units, e.g. personal digital assistant [PDA]
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/148 Management of a network of parking areas

Abstract

This document describes systems and techniques that may be used to aggregate information about open parking spots from various different parking providers or organizations.

Claims

1. A method of managing parking information, the method comprising:

receiving, at a computer system and from each of a plurality of separate organizations that manage parking locations, data indicating a current status of their respective parking locations;

aggregating the data from each of the plurality of separate organizations into a database of converted data, wherein the data for each of the parking locations is converted to have a format that is common to each of the other of the parking locations;

receiving, at the computer system and from a computing device that is associated with a third party that is different than the organizations that manage parking locations, a request for information about current or historic parking conditions at or near a particular geographic location; and

providing, to the computing device and by the computer system, parking information that is generated from the aggregated data of the plurality of separate organizations and that represents parking conditions for at least a portion of the parking locations that are located within a threshold distance of the particular geographic location, wherein the parking information is formatted for display on the computing device of the third party.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein data received from particular ones of the separate organizations is in a format that differs from data received from others of the separate organizations.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein aggregating the data comprises reformatting data from at least some of the separate organizations into the common format of converted data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein reformatting the data comprises passing the data through a predefined translation template.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the parking information comprises formatting the aggregated data so that it is arranged to be superimposed over a map of an area that includes the particular geographic location.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data received from the separate organizations includes identifiers that indicate formats in which respective one of the separate organizations have formatted their data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein, for at least a particular parking location that is associated with a particular organization from the plurality of separate organizations, receiving particular data indicating the current status of the particular parking location comprises:

providing, by the computer system and to a separate computer system that is associated with the particular organization, a first request for information from a parking feed provided by the particular organization;

receiving the information from the parking feed, wherein the information identifies at least i) a first address at which a parking location feed that is associated with the particular parking location can be accessed, and ii) a second address at which inventory reports that are associated with the particular parking location can be accessed;

obtaining, using the first address, parking location information for the particular parking location from the separate computer system, wherein the parking location information identifies, at least, a geographic location at which the particular parking location is located; and

obtaining, using the second address, one or more inventory reports for the particular parking location from the separate computer system, wherein the one or more inventory reports indicate i) a number of available parking spots at the particular parking location and ii) a time at which the number of available parking spots were observed.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the one or more inventory reports also indicate a number of occupied parking spots at the particular parking location.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining a capacity of the particular parking location based on a combination of the number of available parking spots and the number of occupied parking spots; and

providing information that indicates the capacity of the particular parking location to the computing device.

10. A system for managing parking information, the system comprising:

one or more vendor interfaces and one or more consumer interfaces, the vendor interfaces arranged to receive information according to predetermined formats from parking providers, and the consumer interfaces arranged to receive requests from client computing devices for parking-related information about one or more of the parking providers;

a parking data aggregator programmed to convert data received from at least some of the parking providers to a common format, and to store the data in the common format; and

a parking spot tracking application programmed to identify available parking inventory near locations identified in requests for the parking-related information from the client computing devices, the available parking inventory identified from the common format data and from among multiple of the parking providers that separately reported data to the system.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein information received from particular ones of the parking providers is in a format that differs from information received from others of the parking providers.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the parking spot tracking application is further programmed to provide information describing the available parking inventory to the client computing devices.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the parking spot tracking application is further programmed to format the information provided to the client computing devices so that it is arranged to be superimposed over a map of an area that includes a geographic location of interest.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the information received from the parking providers includes identifiers that indicate formats in which respective one of the parking providers have formatted their information.

15. A computer program product embodied in a computer-readable storage device storing instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving, from each of a plurality of separate organizations that manage parking locations, data indicating a current status of their respective parking locations;

aggregating the data from each of the plurality of separate organizations into a database of converted data, wherein the data for each of the parking locations is converted to have a format that is common to each of the other of the parking locations;

receiving, from a computing device that is associated with a third party that is different than the organizations that manage parking locations, a request for information about current or historic parking conditions at or near a particular geographic location; and

providing, to the computing device, parking information that is generated from the aggregated data of the plurality of separate organizations and that represents parking conditions for at least a portion of the parking locations that are located within a threshold distance of the particular geographic location, wherein the parking information is formatted for display on the computing device of the third party.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein data received from particular ones of the separate organizations is in a format that differs from data received from others of the separate organizations.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein aggregating the data comprises reformatting data from at least some of the separate organizations into the common format of converted data.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein, for at least a particular parking location that is associated with a particular organization from the plurality of separate organizations, receiving particular data indicating the current status of the particular parking location comprises:

providing, to a computer system that is associated with the particular organization, a first request for information from a parking feed provided by the particular organization;

receiving the information from the parking feed, wherein the information identifies at least i) a first address at which a parking location feed that is associated with the particular parking location can be accessed, and ii) a second address at which inventory reports that are associated with the particular parking location can be accessed;

obtaining, using the first address, parking location information for the particular parking location from the separate computer system, wherein the parking location information identifies, at least, a geographic location at which the particular parking location is located; and

obtaining, using the second address, one or more inventory reports for the particular parking location from the separate computer system, wherein the one or more inventory reports indicate i) a number of available parking spots at the particular parking location and ii) a time at which the number of available parking spots were observed.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the one or more inventory reports also indicate a number of occupied parking spots at the particular parking location.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

determining a capacity of the particular parking location based on a combination of the number of available parking spots and the number of occupied parking spots; and

providing information that indicates the capacity of the particular parking location to the computing device.