Finding the Spot: IoT enabled Smart Parking Technologies for Occupancy Monitoring – A Comprehensive Review

Major cities in India have a significant number of vehicles, and the rate of ownership is increasing every day. However, the lack of proper parking infrastructure in these cities causes problems such as difficulty in finding parking spaces. According to the Urban Mobility Survey 2023 by Times Network, nearly 74% of vehicle owners in metropolitan cities struggle to find a parking slot. Various measures have been implemented to address this issue. One of the most promising measures is a smart parking management system. This system can use technologies like Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) to make check-in and check-out easier. It can also include Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), wired sensors, or visual occupancy detection to provide real-time occupancy status. The smart parking management system can offer useful services through mobile or web applications such as parking occupancy monitoring, reservation, payment gateway, occupancy prediction, automated check-in and check-out, and parking record management. The purpose of this review paper is to summarize the works undertaken in the field of smart IoT parking systems and educate the technological community about the technologies, features, and procedures for implementing the smart parking management system. In the paper, we aim to summarise the works on occupancy monitoring in smart IoT parking systems addressing the advantages and issues of the present occupancy monitoring methods, also suggesting future inclusions for smart IoT parking systems.