Webgis parking management system for Voi town

Abstract

Urban transport faces several challenges, among the most important being the time-consuming challenge of finding and accessing parking spaces by automobile users. In Voi Town, the problems associated with parking include insufficient data and information on parking (parking slots’ inventory), lack of accountability to fees collected from owners of parked automobiles and lack of documentation including location of the number of vehicles packed at a given period of time. In a bid to solve the above challenges in Voi Town so as to develop Voi Parking Management System (VPMS), the study technologies were established from a thorough review of literature related to application of GIS in its entirety and specifically in parking systems. The reviews factored in all the spatial and non-spatial elements to come up with the design that has been implemented and tested and results as well as recommendations presented. The gaps within the present system were identified and a well thought out design of a system that integrates different inputs while leveraging on available technologies was presented. VPMS was developed by identifying a solution in the perspective of inventory of the parking slots, accountability for the fees collected from parked vehicles and a mechanism to report the location of each parked vehicle within Voi Town. This study concludes that, with the available technology it is possible to have an inventory of all the parking slots/areas within Voi Town and that it is possible to integrate several layers or shapefiles besides the parking slots to provide auxiliary data that can help in parking analysis. A further demonstration that an e-payment system is also viable was illustrated by the use of Safaricom Sand box. In conclusion, the study recommends implementation of VPMS and also suggests implementation of such system where location is key to the realization of the project in question.