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Wireless Mobile-based Shopping Mall
Car Parking System (WMCPS)
Soh Chun Khang Teoh Jie Hong Tan Saw Chin Shengqiong Wang
Multimedia University Multimedia University Multimedia University Faculty of Information and
Jalan Multimedia 63100 Jalan Multimedia 63100 Jalan Multimedia 63100 Communication Technology
Cyberjaya Selangor Cyberjaya Selangor Cyberjaya Selangor Swinburne University of Technology
Malaysia Malaysia Malaysia Melbourne, Australia
jiehong_88@hotmail.com ssshiam@gmail.com sctan1@mmu.edu.my shengqiongwang@swin.edu.au
Abstract- The existing car parking system in Malaysia usually
required the car drivers to search an empty parking space in the
car park without providing detail direction toward the available
parking space. As the result, drivers may waste a lot of time and
unnecessary energy while they turn around in the car park
without direction and may cause car traffic congestion in parking
space. This paper investigates the problems of car parking system
in Malaysia and finally proposed a Wireless Mobile-based Car
Parking System using low cost SMS service. The implementation
of SMS service into the car parking system enable drivers to
receive information regarding the availability of car parking
spaces. In this system, the drivers can resend SMS to request for
new assignment of car parking spaces if they fail to get the
previous assigned destination. This paper demonstrates the design
and implementation of Wireless Mobile-based Car Parking
System (WMCPS) using SMS services by Breadth First Search
(BFS) algorithm in finding t he nearest parking space for drivers.
The stimulation results reveal the intelligence of this system can
efficiently allocate and utilize the car parking spaces inside the
car park.
I. INTRODUCTION
It is very common to have huge crowds in shopping malls
during peak hour (lunch time, dinner time, weekend) and
sales periods. Discounts offered by merchants in shopping
mall can attract a lot of customers to come. Most of the
customer travels to the shopping mall with their own
vehicles and this indirectly cause the problem of finding
empty car parking space for the car drivers. Parking space is
necessary for those who love to go for shopping and it is a
must for shopping complex to provide a comfortable, secure
and quality parking space for their customers. Nowadays,
parking space need to be constructed in multi-level since the
number of vehicles is increasing rapidly [1] [2]. As a
consequence, drivers may face difficulties when they are
required to seek in the lengthy multi-level parking space. It is
very troublesome for a driver to seek an unknown available
empty car parking space in a large car park.
Nowadays, there are several car park guidance systems using
different technologies to resolve the parking problem in car
park. In Vehicle Navigation and Information System
Conference 1995, Akihito used the vehicle sensors at each
parking lot to track the exact locations of the empty parking
spaces [3]. Wolff et al used magnetic field sensor and wired-
based concept to test on their simulation car park model [4].
In the year of 2008, Sunway Pyramid and The Mines
shopping complexes also installed with this vehicle sensor
and indicators above each parking space [5] [6]. It will show
green light when no occupied and red light when occupied to
assist the driver to find parking space. This technology can
provide comprehensive knowledge of the car park occupancy
is thus available and assist driver in searching empty car
parking space. Thus, it dramatically decrease the searching
time need to find an empty car parking space. One
shortcoming of vehicle sensor system is driver may not have
luck to park their car near to the entrance. They may lead by
the indicator to park their car far away and this does not
benefit the driver anymore. Another possible situation is
when there is only one available space; there will be more
than one car drive toward it. Competing on an available car
parking space is a waste of time and petrol. Furthermore, a
lot of sensors have to be used inside a car park. This will be
costly for a huge parking area and it also added up to the
sensor maintenance cost.
Some parking systems of foreign countries are providing
online reservation service to customer which they can
reserve a car parking space for a period of time like Munich
Airport [7]. Anyhow, problem arise when they park over the
limit of reserved time, their reserved parking space has been
parked by others and etc. Some of the system provided the
service that assigned parking space for driver via number
printed on ticket, but the parking space may be far away
from driver [8]. Sometimes it is inconvenient as the parking
space may be taken over by those who are illegal parking or
looking for available parking space too. One of the major
problems faced in online reservation systems is wasting
resources.Some drivers may reserve the parking spaces but
didn’t come to park or miss the parking period. So, the
system will hold the reserved parking spaces until the drivers
come or didn’t come. This will waste the parking spaces
because the system cannot utilize the available parking
spaces all the time in the car park. Besides, most drivers do
not have the necessary computer knowledge to make
reservation via the web. Therefore the system is aiming at
computer literate younger generation [9] [10].
With the advancement of wireless technologies, wireless
mobile-based methods have been employed in car parking
system. Monash University’s Facilities & Services Division,
Clayton campushas planned to develop a SMS based car
parking system called Monash Car Park SMS Project (M-
CarPS) [11] [12]. This system provides users with
information about the vacant car park areas and payment for
the parking tickets. However, the drawback of the system is
2010 IEEE Asia-Pacific Services Computing Conference
978-0-7695-4305-5/10 $25.00 © 2010 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/APSCC.2010.116
573
it only allows user to check the availability of car parking
spaces but does not provide any exact information about car
parking spaces location such as parking lot ID. Consequently,
this system didn’t implement by the Monash University yet
because they didn’t recommend this system to pay or
purchase their ticket fee.
In our proposed mobile-based car parking system, the driver
will be able to receive information about the available
parking spaces inside the car park by using SMS service of
their mobile phone. This proposed car parking system is
designed to benefit the public and to increase the utilization
of parking spaces in shopping complexes’ car park. This
system has been named as Wireless Mobile-based Car
Parking System (hereafter called as “WMCPS”). The
assignment of the vacant parking space is based on the
shortest path distance [13-16] by using BFS algorithm,
taking into consideration the entrance to the car park used
and the nearest entrance into the car park to make the drivers
feel convenient. The benefit of using SMS is because it is
low cost [17 – 20] and if their first assigned parking space is
parked by others, they still can SMS again to get a new
assigned parking space within a minute from the system [21]
[22]. Hence, this feature can act as an emergency assistance
and it can make sure the entire drivers in shopping mall car
park have a place to park their car instead of driving around
in car park for looking parking.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
describes the design and implementation of the WMCPS. In
Section 3, performance evaluation is conducted for the
proposed system. Finally, Section 4 concludes this paper and
suggests some future work.
II. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF WMCPS
Fig. 1 below shows the overview operation of the wireless
mobile-based car parking system (WMCPS). First, the driver
arrives at entrance and takes the parking ticket. Then, the
driver may follow the assigned parking spaces (with parking
lot ID) that printed on the ticket to park their vehicle. If there
is available, means there is an empty parking space, driver
may park their vehicle and proceed to the shopping mall.
However, if the driver arrive at the assigned parking space
and found out the parking space is already occupied, driver
may send a SMS to WMCPS to get a new assigned parking
spaces. Within a short period of time, driver may receive a
SMS with a new parking lot ID. Then, driver may proceed to
the new parking space to park their vehicle.
Figure 1: Overview of WMCPS
The SMS service part of WMCPS is developing based on
GSM modem, SMS gateway and web server. OZEKI NG
SMS Gateway (OZEKI) is the software tool that the system
uses to support the services of send and receive SMS.
OZEKI allow user to attach a mobile phone as GSM modem
to the PC, and then control the GSM modem with AT
command to send/receive SMS. [25]
The interface of the system is designed using PHP script on
the Apache web server. Apache send the HTTP requests and
communicate directly with OZEKI. After OZEKI get the
request, it will proceed with GSM modem. The main code
that associated with OZEKI in PHP format to send and
receive SMS is shown as follow:
Send SMS
if ($sender!='') {
#a
# Save incoming messages
#
$fp = fopen("receivelog.txt","a");
fputs($fp,"Sender: $sender\nReceived Time: $time\nText: $messagedf\n\n");
fclose($fp);
$responsetext = "Date: $date \nTime: $time2 \nYour assign parking lot ID
is " . $grid[$y][$x] ->label() . ".";
include_once("sendsms.php");
ozekiSend($sender,$responsetext,$debug);
} else {
echo "The PHP script is ready for accepting messages" ;
}
Receive SMS
$sender = $_GET['sen der'];
$messagedf = $_GET['msgdata'];
$time = $ _GET['recvtime'];
Firstly, Ozeki will set the information for log in to the SMS
gateway; there are user name, password and Ozeki API’s
URL. Next, the “httpRequest($url)” function is to identify
the URL ($url) send by function ozekiSend() is match the
pattern as designed in Ozeki server. The main purpose to
have ozekiSend() function is to generate a complete URL
which contain the information to send, and then send then
URL with call httpRequest function. Lastly, Ozeki retrieve
the hand phone number and message by $_POST function
and then send the information to ozekiSend function.
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For the receiving part, Ozeki is use $_GET function to get
sender’s phone number ($sender) and text message
($message) from HTTP platform. If the sender variable
contains sender’s phone number, the function will open a
“txt” file ($fp) to store the text message as a record and reply
a text message ($responsetext) to the sender as a response.
In order to achieve drivers’ satisfaction, the WMCPS
assigns the best car parking lot to the driver. This is done
assuming drivers will prefer to park quickly and nearest to
the entrance they took. Thus, allocation of vacant parking
space is important. In this section, we present the car parking
space assignment algorithm by always assign the car to the
shortest path. The objective of the Breadth First Search (BFS)
algorithm is to utilize the car parking spaces and also provide
the best solution for driver by finding the minimum path’s
distance from the entrance they took. [23][24]
Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 show the layout of the stimulation model
used for WMCPS. There are two floors in the car park
stimulation model with each contains over 110 parking
spaces for each floor. Two entrances (Entrance A and
Entrance B) and two exits (Exit A and Exit B) are located in
the first floor. Cars can go to the upper floor via the ramp
(labeled as To Upstair in the diagram below) and exit from
upper floor via another ramp (labeled as From Upstair in the
diagram below) located opposite.
Figure 2: Stimulation Model (First Floor)
Figure 3: Stimulation Model (Second Level)
“Check Record” is a web service that created to periodically
records the SMS history into the database and allow user of
application to trace back the record when they need it. The
log file contain driver’s mobile number and time they send
the message. The print screen of the web application is show
in Fig. 4. From the figure, the front part (e.g. +6017xxxxxxx)
is mobile phone number of driver that send SMS to the
system to request parking space assignment; the following
part is the time the system received those SMS.
Figure 4: Check record
Fig. 5 below shows an example of the stimulation model.
From the diagram, there are several available parking spaces
in first floor such as A73, A92, B43, B81 (those labels with
green color are available, red are occupied), so the system no
needs to search available parking at second floor. Then,
system will find the shortest path from those available
parking spaces and return the parking lot ID to user. A
function panel is designed to show the detail information of
stimulation result.
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Figure 5: Shortest Path Route from stimulation
III. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
The diagram show in the Fig.7 reveals the graph of Estimate
Average Period of Time in System (APTS) versus Elapsed
Time. “APTS” is the duration that the driver starting driving
from the entrance to the assigned parking lot successfully.
The “Elapsed Time” in the diagram is the duration (time) for
running the stimulation. The value of “APTS” is taken from
the average of 10 sets’ stimulations data whereas the values
of “Elapsed Time” are fixed as 10 minute, 30 minute,
60minute and 120minute in the simulation. There are 3 types
of arrival rate to be tested in the simulation as the following
diagram.
Arrival Rate Mean time estimation for new arrival
Fast 7.5 seconds
Medium 15 seconds
Slow 25 seconds
Figure 6: Category of Arrival Rate
From the table show in Fig.6, the inter arrival rate for the
stimulation model can be categorized into 3 types (Fast,
Medium, Slow). For the category of fast arrival rate, the
average inter arrival time for a new car to enter the car park
is 7.5 seconds whereas the category of medium arrival rate is
15 seconds and finally the slow arrival rate category is
recorded as 25 seconds.
Figure 7: APTS vs. Elapsed Time
Referring to the graph in Figure 7, the lowest estimate
average period of time in system (APTS) was achieved after
10 minutes of running the system. The APTS obtained by
slow arrival rate was 13.63 sec, followed by medium arrival
rate with 14.21 sec and fast arrival rate with 17.84 sec. The
APTS achieved by fast arrival rate was much far away from
slow and medium arrival rate. This is due to the number of
cars that assigned to the car park in the system for fast arrival
rate was nearly double compared with slow and medium
arrival rate. The range of the cars that assigned by the fast
arrival rate was 84-93 cars, but there were only 23-25 cars
and 37-40 cars for slow and medium arrival rate respectively.
The availability of empty car parking spaces in first floor is
still high for slow and medium rate. Therefore, driver can
reach the parking spaces in a timely matter and leaving the
system in short period of time.
In the case of the elapsed time is 30 minutes, the APTS
obtained by slow arrival rate was 17.29 sec, followed by
medium arrival rate, 19.74 sec and fast arrival rate, 21.65 sec.
APTS for each category of arrival rate has recorded higher
values compared with the result achieved during 10 minutes
of running the system. This is due to the drivers had to park
their car farther, as the nearest parking spaces have been
occupied.
The APTS results obtained for each of the arrival rate after
60 minutes of running the system were close to each other.
The APTS recorded at 60 minutes by slow arrival rate was
20.87 sec, medium arrival rate was 21.43 sec, and fast arrival
rate was 21.98 sec. Each of the arrival rates has reached the
same point after 120 minutes of running the system. This
point can be treated as the saturation point as the differences
for all rates were small and the effects of arrival rate can be
ignored. The saturation point happens when the car parking
spaces were almost fully occupied and drivers have to reach
the parking spaces in the remote location of the car park.
From the result, it can be concluded that the more cars enter
the car park and had been assigned to the specific parking lot,
the farther the assigned parking lot that a driver will get as
the nearest parking slot have been occupied by the other cars
that entered earlier. Additionally, the operation of WMCPS
is stable and efficient as the negative impact to the
performance of WMCPS in the case for high arrival rate is
small and is ignorable.
IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Wireless Mobile-based Car parking System (WMCPS) has
been developed using PHP and SMS service approach. This
particular system will search for an available parking space
using shortest path algorithm (BFS algorithm) and print the
specific parking lot ID on the ticket that the driver taken
before they enter the car park. Besides, the system allows the
driver to request for a new assigned parking lot via SMS if
the previous assigned parking lot is occupied. The system
has been tested on a stimulation model with different
conditions such as slow arrival rate, medium arrival rate and
fast arrival rate. By simulation results, it shows that WMCPS
can allocate the best available parking space to the driver in
term of providing the shortest path distance. Furthermore, the
576
result also shows that the performance of the system is less
affected by the arrival rate of car that enters the car park. It is
because when the car park is nearly full, drivers have to
reach for parking spaces in the remote location of the car
park. Feature of the SMS service is able to resolve the
problem of failure parking that happened in car park. The
WMCPS will be extended by considering the integration of
GPS technology to provide guidance to the drivers to achieve
a more reliability system in future.
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