XM ParkingLink Coming Later This Year
Friday, August 4, 2006 at 11:11 AM
Tags: 2, XM
XM ParkingLink was originally unveiled late last year and was showcased at CES 2006 on the XM Advanced Services vehicle. Well, now XM Satellite Radio and their partners in the service (parking-lot giant, Standard Parking and electronic-sensor specialist, Quixote Transportation Technologies) are set to roll out the new service later this year.
Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and Washington DC will be the first cities to see the initial beta tests of XM ParkingLink, which builds upon XM NavTraffic (currently available in 44 markets). The partners are hoping to offer the service during the second half of 2007.
The system works through Quixote's electronic sensors, embedded in many of Standard Parking's 1,900 nationwide parking facilities (which have a total of a million parking spaces in them) and include major airports, office buildings, malls and arenas. Eventually XM ParkingLink will hookup with parking lots and garages owned by other companies.
If you look at the photo above, the nav screen shows four garages marked by a "P" icon. The red "P" indicates a garage that’s completely full, while the three green "Ps" have a number underneath the icon that tells the driver how many parking spaces are left. Amazing.
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Comments
A little thing, maybe. But stuff like this is attractive to the OEMs and that's why you have the most progressive OEMs (Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, and yes, Hyundai) onboard with XM.
This application requires as close to zero bandwidth as you can get but for many will be as appealing as realtime cartoons in the back seat (which will require a significant chunk of SIRI's bandwidth).
As a former city-dweller who frequently had to deal with downtown parking nightmares, this service would have had great appeal to me at a few bucks a month.
Posted by: Stack Pointer | August 4, 2006 11:39 AM
Out of curiousity it would be neat if this service would work similar to BWI's airport where it says what parking level has the open spaces. Granted if the parking facility does not show this information upon entrance.
Posted by: Another Thought | August 4, 2006 12:51 PM
I live 5 miles from BWI and I fly out of BWI & Reagan Nat'l frequently. If this were to expand to airports then I'd stop talking to myself about the "FULL" spaces and find a space at the garages.
Posted by: realwx ? | August 4, 2006 2:32 PM
good point, Another thought. what an awesome idea for xm to do, or should do.
Posted by: FaFaFluFly ? | August 4, 2006 4:29 PM
Ha! what a waste of bandwidth! i drive to NYC almost everyday and never have problems finding parking. if 1 lot is full, just drive 2 feet to the next lot.
Posted by: Philmore | August 4, 2006 7:54 PM
I'm sure they are well on their way to hooking up to systems like BWI's. Hopefully over time the XM Navtraffic fee will go down over time, as it should.
Stack Pointer...you forgot to mention Honda(i understand acura is sub-level of Honda but still), GM, and to some degree Harley Davidson.
Posted by: ahigee ? | August 5, 2006 1:39 AM
ahigee- If your going to make the point of Honda then Toyota and Nissan should be mentioned as well.
Posted by: Another Thought | August 8, 2006 7:42 AM