Coordinating AV Dispatch with Smart Remote Parking

Increased growth of public spaces often results in the increase in vehicular traffic. This is a particular concern for dense spaces like college campuses that facilitate a growing student population and for parking complexes dedicated to expanding organizations like commercial companies and military facilities. Mass transit solutions must evolve by incorporating new technology to leverage autonomy and reduce carbon footprints while simultaneously incentivizing travelers to increase their use. We present an extension of our previous smart parking and Autonomous Vehicle tasking work by integrating the two with a vehicle advanced warning system based on Bluetooth technology and a self forming mesh network. By detecting and authenticating vehicles bound for parking lots prior to their arrival, we can transact with an AV route planning and tasking system earlier than a vehicle's arrival at the parking facility, thereby reducing traveler wait times at the transfer point to an AV. Consequently, our system encourages parking in more remote lower traffic areas, thereby reducing localized problematic traffic congestion when coupled with maximal occupancy of automated shuttles. We deployed our Bluetooth sensor nodes to an off-site parking lot on George Mason University's Fairfax Campus, and conducted feasibility experiments to explore our proof- of-concept. We also outline a constraint-based shuttle assignment algorithm that minimizes traveler wait times while maintaining consistent AV service. By utilizing systems like these, densely utilized spaces such as college campuses, are enabled with new technology for combating traffic without significant cost.