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Nowadays, searching for parking areas has been a headache matter for many drivers worldwide as drivers spend a lot of time searching for parking areas. This is contributed by significant increase of number of cars in the cities. Thus, as the number of cars increases in the cities, the demand for parking areas also increases, so as with no information to drivers of where they can park their cars, drivers spend long time finding parking areas. Therefore, to tackle this problem the study experimented the viability of IoT in optimizing the time used by drivers when searching for car parking slots in Dar es Salaam city specifically at Kisutu ward. The research adopted a case study research design where by semi-structured interviews and observation were used to acquire a good understanding of the parking problem. An experiment of random acquired respondents was conducted at Kisutu ward, whereby a parking system was deployed at JMall parking area. The system was developed by considering an IoT technique that was identified through systematic literature review. The time “before” and “after” intervention of IoT technique was recorded. Thirty (30) respondents (drivers) were enrolled for the experiment; 18 were males and 12 were females. The results in systematic literature review showed that, majority of studies used Ultrasonic sensor, Infrared sensors and radio frequency identification as technological technique for addressing parking problems in different part of the world. Furthermore, many of the reviewed literature didn’t mention what were the best technology for addressing parking problems especially in Dar es Salaam city, though IoT technologies have been successfully applied in various studies in identifying free parking spaces and sending that information to drivers through mobile devices and other communication channels. Hence, it was found that, a combination of the two technology (ultrasonic and infrared sensors) could have positive effect on addressing parking problems at Kisutu ward in Dar es Salaam. Majority (80%) of car drivers at Kisutu used their own experience in searching for car parking slots whereby about 87% of car drivers mentioned that, finding car parking slots is an issue at Kisutu ward. Of the two (2) conducted experiments (before and after), “before experiment duration was 28.1 minutes and “after experiment” duration was 8.37 minutes in average searching for parking slots. After experiment responded positively by 19.73 minutes lesser than before experiment in searching for car parking slots. Therefore, the study conclude that, although the technological technique used in this study was the combination of two sensors which seemed to suite the environment of Kisutu ward in Dar es Salaam, does not mean other researchers could not use more than two sensors. Hence, the study recommends that, future studies could use a combination of more than two sensors for addressing parking problems |
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