A multiple-criteria algorithm for smart parking: Making fair and preferred parking reservations in smart cities

Smart cities are struggling with using public space efficiently and decreasing pollution at the same time. For this governments have embraced smart parking initiatives, which should result in a high utilization of public space and minimization of the driving, in this way reducing the emissions of cars. Yet, simply opening data about the availability of public spaces results in more congestions as multiple cars might be heading for the same parking space. In this work, we propose a Multiple Criteria based Parking space Reservation (MCPR) algorithm, for reserving a space for a user to deal with parking space in a fair way. Users' requirements are the main driving factor for the algorithm and used as criteria in MCPR. To evaluate the algorithm, simulations for three set of user preferences were made. The simulation results show that the algorithm satisfied the users' request fairly for all the three preferences. The algorithm helps users automatically to find a parking space according to the users' requirements. The algorithm can be used in a smart parking system to search for a parking space on behalf of user and send parking space information to the user.