Creating smart transportation solutions that respond to current technologies could be the way to revolutionize cities,

Ever felt frustrated trying to find a parking spot? Well urban infrastructure is headed for a serious makeover. An innovative smart-parking system is in the making encompassing various available technology and creative urban planning models. Design Mind reports:

While we may not be zooming in speedy Minority Report-style vehicles in 2025, we will have full access to data that is in the cloud-either through our vehicles and more likely, simply because the cloud is anywhere we are-whether its accessible through our smartphones, tablets or embedded in the world around us.

In essence, the new technology will help connect the vehicles to physical structures in order for it to reserve and pay for parking spots on the street or a parking garage. This new development can have larger impacts on our daily lives, it can help reorganize our concepts of time and space. More importantly it is presenting larger adjustments to our city infrastructures and posing questions for urban planners on how best to readjust our spaces. Design Mind adds to this by suggesting that:

Urban infrastructures are increasingly being equipped with sensors and other means of collecting information and channeling our every day actions from energy use to parking patterns, into software and networks that analyze data and act upon it. Cities—and communities—are becoming “smarter” as “ the internet of things” evolves.

Reported via The Telegraph a technology company based out of Washington DC, Pegasus Global Holdings, is planning to spend $200 million over the next three years to invest in a “smart city” with technologies such as: traffic control, smart power grids, cyber security and self-driving vehicles. However the idea of investing in technology to build “smart” cities or infrastructure doesn’t only stem from the desire to materialize futuristic models of development. In a report by IBM, it was suggested that in creating cities that respond to our current technologies there are opportunities to encompass concepts of sustainability and energy. The report indicates:

In the United States, traffic congestion losses are growing at 8 percent a year, the most recent estimate being $ 78 billion in 2005. Worldwide, in both developed and developing-world cities, traffic congestion-related expenses represent between 1 percent and 3 percent of most cities GDP.

Much of this can be curbed via creative vision of how we can improve our urban contexts. While there are looming concerns about security, environment and privacy there continues to be much excitement of what the future promises.

Design Mind