The Technological Race to Find You a Place to Park According to Inrix, a data collection firm that provides traffic data to the federal government and space information to a number of parking apps, American drivers waste 17 hours per year in a search for a space. “Congestion and parking are opposite sides of the same coin.” Inrix and its competitors combine historical data and real-time information to predict how likely a driver will be to find a space in a garage, and which streets are more likely to have metered parking available during a particular time of day. Waze, the crowdsourcing navigation app, uses Inrix and other data sources as it enters the “initial stages” of integrating parking information, said Fej Shmuelevitz, the company’s business development manager. The BMW screen shows available garages, and its ParkNow service allows drivers to reserve a space and, if the garage has contracted for the service, pay through the car.
