It’s impossible to live life uninterrupted when you’re circling the block for the 17th time looking for a place to park. Chevrolet is here to help you out: The 2014 SS Sedan will practically park itself. Using Park Assist technology, the car will assess spaces to make sure you have enough room to get in and out; take over the steering wheel once you’ve found The One; and guide you into the vacant spot.

Parking at Mississippi State University is now more user-friendly with the addition of a new parking guidance program on campus utilizing the award-winning motorist guidance application, Parker™ by Streetline, and parking publishing platform, ParkEdge™.

Your skill in understanding and playing organizational politics predicts multiple measures of your career success, according to author Gerald Ferris (Political Skill at Work) and other researchers. Streetline CEO and former SAP senior executive Zia Yusuf has also argued that business success requires both substantive knowledge and the ability to master organizational dynamics.

Just as SaaS has emerged as a dominant new force in enterprise software, mobile apps will offer innovative new capabilities and business models – and disrupt many old ones.

Imagine never having to look for a parking space ever again. Imagine that from here on out, this problem is solved. Fast-forward to 2025. You’re driving from Brooklyn to Manhattan…because driving in New York City, and everywhere else, has become much simpler a task than it was a decade or so before.

We get to see a lot of exciting companies across a range of technology areas, so this month our Open Innovation team have picked out of five emerging innovation areas and some of the most exciting companies in each. The presentation below highlights some of the top innovative companies in Self-Healing Materials, Internet of Things, Education, Personal Manufacturing, and Civilian Drones.

The college parking blues: Lauren Bracco of Wayne knew them well during her four years at Montclair State University. “Parking was really difficult,” said the 2012 grad. “They even built a new lot my senior year, and it was still always packed.”

As advanced as we are as a society, one thing remains constant: The act of parking an automobile in a congested area is one of the most frustrating things to endure — both as a passenger (who has to listen to whatever­ verbal abuse is being unleashed) and as a driver (i.e., the whiplash you get as you scan for a spot).

There’s no need to dig through purses or pockets for change to feed the meters in an 18-block section of the Bronx. New York City has launched a pilot program that allows drivers to pay for parking by smartphone. The free app and payment processing service are being provided by PayByPhone, a company that has already installed the technology in cities like Miami, San Francisco, London, Ottawa and Vancouver.

Watch as New York City Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Sadik-Khan unveil a new program to find parking, as well as pay for parking meters remotely via smartphone apps PayByPhone and Parker.

Planning a night out at the ballet usually involves travel considerations. Is it a Bank Holiday/will there be engineering works/how late do the trains run on a Sunday/will there be any point in taking the car ? The answer to the last question, in most major cities, would be no. Trying to find a parking space could take you as long as the journey itself, and it’s extremely stressful when you know you’re working to a curtain-up deadline that is immovable, rather like the traffic.

Learn how Streetline works with cities to place sensors in parking spaces and uses data to help drivers find an open spot with our app, Parker™, alongside our CEO, Zia Yusuf.

If you have driven into a town centre on a Saturday afternoon, you know the drill: head to your favourite back street looking for a parking space; then, when you discover the bays are full, join the holding pattern of other cars as they circle, waiting for someone to move. Unless you pay a premium for a multistorey car park, or steer clear of town centres altogether, joining a convoy of cars patrolling jam-packed streets in the hunt for a free space is all but inevitable. But this inconvenience could soon become a thing of the past, banished, with other driving annoyances such as wind-up windows, by technology.

Your site is a place where potential customers find out all the information you can provide about your business. This includes products, services, pricing, and a little bit about you. If your establishment is in a busy city, perhaps that’s not the only information you should display on your site. According to a report by the Auto Blog, 90% of the average car’s lifespan is spent in a parking lot.

After years of imagining, the Internet of Things (IoT) is finally here. The Internet is no longer limited to your laptop or smartphone. It’s connected to your body, regular household items, car, and so forth. Wish you could turn on your lights remotely? Done. Wouldn’t it be great to warm up your house on your way home? Got it. And devices like FitBit that are aimed at improving health by monitoring key activities are on the rise, as well.

Smart parking spaces that can automatically alert drivers when they become free are set to be trialled in the UK for the first time. Manchester City Council is testing the new technology, used in American cities, with electronic sensors placed in 200 parking bays. For six months the system will be free to use and will not cost the council a penny either as a trial. Experts behind the scheme said the app is voice controlled, so it can be used at the wheel, and it also works as a sat nav, directing motorists to the nearest available space.

Oregon State University takes you on campus and then through a tutorial in this informational video. First, OSU explains how they’re using smart parking technology and Parker™ to help students locate ADA spaces in real-time in various places throughout campus. After, they walk students through a step-by-step guide on how to use Parker.

Venture capitalists are backing away from expensive bets on clean-technology plays such as solar power and biofuels. Increasingly, they’re turning to an emerging category called cleanweb, which requires relatively small investments because it uses existing technologies like smartphones and the Internet to help consumers and industry conserve energy.

New technologies like big data, sensors, mobile, smart grids are changing the way cities operate. Cities want to help you find parking spaces, avoid traffic jams, get instant help when emergencies happen. Some cities are really leading the charge with super cool projects that show just how wonderful city life can be.

A much-trumpeted ribbon cutting hosted by Washington Mayor Vincent Grey in July 2011 drew out the media in droves and launched a flood of news stories that continued for more than a year. But the ceremony wasn’t for a new government building, museum or bridge. It was for a parking meter.

Cisco Systems is gearing up for what it claims could be $14 trillion opportunity with the Internet of Things. Top technical executives shared plans for the networking giant to embrace IoT as well as efforts to extend to key partners its internal process of evaluating new technologies.

The so-called ‘Internet of Everything’ – which brings together people, processes, data, and things – will create $14.4 trillion (£9.6tr) of value for companies and industries over the next 10 years, representing 21 percent aggregate growth in the profits of all the companies in the world, according to Cisco.

A growing number of drivers are turning to a high-tech solution for a low-tech problem — finding a parking spot in the nation’s congested cities. From Pittsburgh to Los Angeles — and dozens of cities in between — mobile applications are becoming available to ease drivers’ search for a place to park.

The GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) today announced the winners of the 18th Annual Global Mobile awards, held at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and IBM is thrilled to report that IBM SmartCamp 2010 winner Streetline took home the award for Best Mobile Innovation for ‘Smart Cities’ with their parking solution. The winners were honored in an afternoon ceremony hosted by writer, actor and comedian, David Walliams.

You might have heard about the widely publicized “Bendy Bus,” Clemson Area Transit’s (CAT) new articulated bus that’s the first of its kind in the state. With many of its parts made right here in South Carolina, this American-made vehicle has been widely lauded for its ability to carry 56 percent more riders than our current 40-foot buses, save an average of 18 percent on gas and reduce the congestion along the overcrowded Red Route, which runs between Clemson and Central. No doubt that the bus will contribute to efforts toward sustainability both on and off campus.

Lou Gerig, president of Sease, Gerig & Associates updates us on 2 new apps that are the latest in parking modernizations for Indianapolis. Working with the City of Indianapolis, ParkIndy is helping to reduce urban congestion by installing parking sensors and introduced an app, caller Parker , to help ease traffic by telling motorists where to find open parking spaces.

Circling for a parking spot, worrying about feeding the parking meters, and ultimately wondering if you should just turn around and go home. These are familiar feelings for anyone who has ever had to find a parking spot in a hurry. Not only is it frustrating, but the time spent looking for parking also contributes to traffic congestion – some research suggests 30 percent on average – and air pollution.

Streetline, a Foster City, Calif.-based startup providing sensors to inform consumers about open parking spaces, has raised $25 million in series “C” financing led by True Ventures, with participation by new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Citi and existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Fontinalis Partners.

In the heart of the city, parking can often be a time-consuming challenge. Watch this news clip (in German) to learn about how the City of Braunschweig, Germany is using Streetline’s sensors to display real-time parking availability via Parker™.

.

Everybody knows how tiresome finding a parking space can be. It can result in delays, missed deadlines, and stress. Watch RTL Regional’s reporter, Suana Meckeler, find parking in Braunschweig with this innovative app (in German).

Parking is one of the great unsolved urban challenges. On average, it takes nearly 20 minutes for drivers to find parking, according to a 2011 IBM study in 20 major international cities. Some cities estimate that upwards of 30 to 45 percent of their traffic is caused by motorists searching for a parking spot. This leads to frustration—when you’re going to the movies or out to dinner, parking can often be the step that stands in your way—and to bigger societal problems like to increased congestion and carbon output.

From intelligent light sockets to the driverless car, and with the cost of sensors dropping and the reach of mobile devices and wireless Internet expanding, it’s getting cheaper and easier for us to become more connected. Leading thinkers at progressive companies are banking on the belief that the next decade will be focused on the “Internet of Things” where sensors and advanced mesh networks allow machines to communicate and collaborate with one another.

Streetline Inc. wants to put an end to the days of driving aimlessly around congested city streets hoping for a parking space to magically appear. The company is installing ultra-low-power wireless sensors in the ground of individual parking spaces in more than 30 cities that can detect the presence of cars and then feed the data into mobile apps and, soon, in-car navigation systems, the company said.

Oregon State University has started using smart parking technology to provide automated, real-time data on the availability of accessible parking campuswide through mobile devices. The Corvallis, OR-based institution is using Streetline’s free Parker app (available for Android and iOS) to make real-time parking data available to students, employees, and visitors.

Tune in to listen to the Wall Street Journal Tech News Briefing that occurs twice daily on weekdays to hear about Streetline’s $25M Series C.

At True, we are big believers in the “connected web” and the “Internet of Things” (IoT). We love how this powerful movement takes cutting-edge software and wraps it in beautiful hardware packages, and connects the digital and physical worlds to create magical experiences for the consumer. True has been enamored with this space since founding our firm, and over the past six years, we have led investments in Fitbit, MakerBot, LittleBits, Sifteo, Valencell and 3D Robotics, to name a few.

Smart parking startup Streetline Inc. said on Thursday it has raised $25 million in a third round of funding as it expands installation of its technology in cities and universities around the world. The Foster City company led by CEO Zia Yusuf said the latest round was led by Palo Alto-based True Ventures and new investors new investors Citi and Qualcomm Inc. Existing investors who participated were Palo Alto-based Sutter Hill Ventures, Menlo Park-based RockPort Capital Partners and Detroit-based Fontinalis Partners.

Streetline, a company installing sensors in city streets to detect where cars are parked, raised $25 million in Series C funding led by True Ventures, VentureWire has learned. New investors Qualcomm Ventures and Citibank and current investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Rockport Capital Partners and Fontinalis Partners (founded by Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford) joined in with pro rata investments. Streetline is building the technical infrastructure for smart parking and ultimately smart cars, both nationally and internationally, and has now expanded into more than 30 cities and universities.

Parking may seem like one of the most low-tech services. But entrepreneurs are looking to address that with new mobile technology. Startup Streetline has raised $25 million in Series C financing led by True Ventures with new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Citi. Existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Fontinalis Partners also participated.

“Smart parking” platform Streetline just announced that it has raised $25 million in Series C funding. The round was led by True Ventures, with participation from new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Citi, as well as past backers Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, and Fontinalis Partners. The company has now raised a total of $40 million, and it says it recently obtained a $25 million credit facility from Citi, too.

There’s just no way that helping people find and pay for parking is sexy. But it’s an industry that many people think can be helped by technology, and investors are now putting big money into their startup picks. Streetline, a Foster City, Calif.-based company that works directly with cities to embed sensors in parking spaces, is announcing today that it has closed $25 million in Series C financing led by True Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures, on top of $15 million it raised a year ago.

The Internet of Everything is the idea that we can start connecting everything around us. Connections between people, things, and machines to produce intelligent data will lead the way we experience life. Therefore, cars and vehicles can be connected to provide a richer and more valuable driving experience. How will Cisco fall into this mix? Cisco’s intelligent network can provide the underlying platform to host innovation.

Global green tech investments tumbled in 2012, but a few sectors, such as water and agriculture, attracted a greater interest from investors than the year before, according to market data released by the Cleantech Group on Thursday.

Parking in most US cities can be a drag. If you’re lucky enough to find an unoccupied spot, you still have to find enough change to fill up the meter. Then, if your errand takes longer than expected, you run the risk of getting a ticket. Maintaining parking meters is no picnic for city governments either. Coins need to removed and batteries need to be replaced frequently. On top of all that, because parking meter rates in most cities haven’t changed for decades, meters typically don’t generate much revenue.

Christmas shoppers circle the block, scanning the curb for vacant parking spaces, holding up traffic, increasing frustration, congestion and emissions, and perhaps finally deciding to get out of downtown altogether to shop at a big box store with acres of parking. But in something dubbed a “smart parking” pilot, San Carlos, Calif., is hoping to reduce congestion, increase the appeal of downtown businesses and literally curb its traffic.

They say trying something again and again but expecting a different outcome is a sign of insanity. If you’ve ever circled a few city blocks, over and over again, searching for a parking spot, you’ve probably felt your own sanity slipping away. Looking for parking in crowded urban corridors is not just maddening, it’s also a big contributor to carbon emissions and poor air quality.

Finding parking in downtown San Mateo or San Carlos can be a drag for busy motorists but a new app called Parker can make the chore a bit easier. Developed by a company called Streetline, in partnership with Cisco, the free app uses sensors embedded in the street to provide real-time parking availability in the downtown area.

Watch this clip recorded live in Indianapolis to see how the City and ParkIndy are making parking easier, including teaming up with Parkmobile and Streetline to offer mobile payments and real-time availability to drivers.

Watch ABC 7 News go on site with Streetline in the City of San Mateo for the joint Cisco smart parking launch in the cities of San Mateo and San Carlos, California.

Have you ever wanted to be able to just look at your phone and know where all of the open parking spaces are in your area? That, in a nutshell, is smart parking and it’s coming to the San Francisco Bay Area thanks to a partnership between Streetline and Cisco. Interestingly, San Francisco itself isn’t the first city in the San Francisco Bay Area to get these smart parking spaces. That honor belongs to Sausalito, which will be joined today by San Mateo and San Carlos.

Finding parking is always a chore, but there are new tools and companies coming to make finding a place to leave your vehicle easier than ever. One startup focused on this problem, Streetline, is getting a big boost for its real-time parking data through a partnership with Cisco that could help get its parking sensors deployed in more cities around the country.

Maybe the most important end node for the internet of things of the future will end up being the parking spot. Networking giant Cisco and smart-parking startup Streetline plan to test that proposition with two projects announced Tuesday morning. The two will connect drivers to up-to-the-minute data on parking spots in two busy Silicon Valley commercial corridors — San Mateo’s 3rd Avenue, and San Carlos’s Laurel Street.

In the SF Bay Area, the cities of San Mateo and San Carlos have announced the deployment of their network of sensors aimed at helping drivers find parking spots with ease thanks to the Parker app (by Streetline Inc). Parker helps user find available parking spots, and the overall idea is to make parking more efficient, whether it is for users, or for the city. In cities like the ones above (and Los Angeles), users can see parking availability in near-realtime, and drivers can head to a parking with a good level of confidence that parking spots are available.

Recorded live from the CityAge New American City conference, hear from various city and other organization leaders – including Streetline President & CEO Zia Yusuf – about how cities are using various technologies and transportation to transform the future of our cities.

For anyone having trouble parking on Mississippi State University’s campus, the answer might be found at the push of a button. Many students like Casie Mahalitc, senior business management major, agree finding a parking spot takes plenty of time and searching.

It’s been a busy week for cities in the UK; and we should draw important insights from its events. On Monday, the Technology Strategy Board (TSB); Department of Business, Innovation and Skills; and the British Standards Institution were the sponsors of a meeting in London to establish a UK “Future Cities Network”. One of their objectives was to build a consensus from the UK to contribute to the City Protocol initiative launched at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona this month.

How important are Maps to Apple [AAPL]? Very important, if the recent rash of senior sackings and the company’s public apology mean anything at all. So why do Maps matter? Here’s three potential reasons behind the company’s cartographic conundrum.

Want to know what’s driving the future of cities? Just peruse this list and be up to date on everything from the future of parking to the maker movement–and how they’re changing the urban landscape.

Urban regions enjoy density. It’s what makes for serendipity — running into someone you know in a crowd of strangers is all the more meaningful. It can also make certain infrastructures more efficient. The vast number of people cycling in and out of subways, coffee shops and freeway lanes is the grounds for an amazing data set, if those people will agree to contribute to apps such as Foursquare or Waze. But, as much as we love the idea of democracy and helping out our neighbor, it turns out crowdsourcing will not solve all problems.

Watch to see Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announce a new parking system provided by Streetline that allows motorists to use Streetline’s app, Parker, to find available parking in real time in downtown Ellicott City.

Historic Ellicott City is now the first town in Maryland to offer a free smartphone parking app, making it easier for visitors to find available spaces. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announced the app’s launch last week in front of the Howard County Visitor Center. ”Everything that we’re doing with this application is to get more people excited to come down here, to shop and enjoy the great, great merchants and business owners here in the historic district of Ellicott City,” Ulman said to a crowd of about 30 people gathered outside the visitor center.

If you want to find parking in Ellicott City, County Executive Ken Ulman told a small crowd standing outside the Howard County Welcome Center Thursday morning, “We now have an app for that.” The app – mobile phone application — is Streetline’s Parker. It allows people to look up real-time information about available parking spaces in the Historic District.

Drivers in Ellicott City will not have to waste time finding a parking spot during this holiday season. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announced Thursday the creation of the Parker, a new smart phone app created by Streetline, Inc. that will direct drivers to open parking spots.

Watch Howard County Executives and merchants debut Streetline’s smart parking technology and smartphone app, Parker, in historic Ellicott City. With Parker, merchants and County Executives can now guide residents and visitors to open parking spaces in real time. The County will also use Streetline’s parking analytics, powered by IBM Cognos®, to view historical trends and make more informed decisions, such as whether the construction of a new garage is needed.

At the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona Telefónica Digital presents a Smart City solution based on the company’s M2M capacities. It is an offering which will allow municipal corporations, urban service providers and entrepreneurs from worldwide to integrate in a single scalable, flexible and self-managing solution the complex environment of necessary sensors and technology, which are characteristic of the so-called “Smart Cities”.

Telefonica has reached a partnership agreement with smart city services provider Streetline. Under the terms of the deal, Telefonica and Streetline will jointly market telematics-enabled smart parking services that allow cities to optimize parking management, while reducing car traffic. The agreement gives Telefonica’s professional teams access to Streetline’s telematics products and services. The product suite is designed to enable cities to launch their smart city initiatives.

At the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona Telefónica Digital presents a Smart City solution based on the company’s M2M capacities. It is an offering which will allow municipal corporations, urban service providers and entrepreneurs from worldwide to integrate in a single scalable, flexible and self-managing solution the complex environment of necessary sensors and technology, which are characteristic of the so-called “Smart Cities”.

Frustrated motorists circling downtown Fort Lauderdale in search of an open parking space can now turn to their mobile phones for help. A free smartphone app that launched Monday will show them in real time where the open spaces are and how to get to them. They can also use the app to pay for the space, to add money without going back to their car and to find their way back to the spot when they’re ready to go home.

Need help finding a parking spot in and around downtown Ft. Lauderdale? Now there’s an app for that. The city is now using technology from Streetline to let drivers know where and when parking spots open up. Sensors embedded in the pavement detect when spaces are available.

There are some very cool car apps — such as PlugShare, which gives you the location of home-based chargers whose owners will let you plug in your electric car. And Recargo, which helps those same owners find stations, plan trips and join a community. But I haven’t heard of one that addresses the bane of any traveler — parking. Until now, anyway. Streetline is such a sensible idea I’m surprised nobody thought of it sooner.

Cleantech Group‘s Greg Neichin opened up this morning’s panel “Startups and Corporations: Bringing Clean Technology to Market” with an important observation. The cleantech market, and certainly the broader energy space is a bit different when it comes to getting big companies in the same room with startups. “For the most part, they tend to get along,” he told a packed session. The session assembled a good mix of panelists, from a startup and venture capital firm to sustainability executives from Nike and Intel.

SXSW Eco, the second annual green offshoot of the perennial Austin, Texas conference, kicks off this week with a flurry of announcements promising to make going green a socially connected, mobile-delivered lifestyle choice, rather than a chore. Think of software developers as struggling bands, successful entrepreneurs as the rock stars, and VCs and corporate investment managers as the record industry moguls, and you’ve got a rough approximation.

Learn how the joint Siemens and Streetline advanced parking project in the City of Reno is helping residents, visitors, and local businesses by providing real time parking availability.

Learn how Russ Martin, CEO of AustriaTech, the Technology Agency of the Ministry of Transport, views the Intelligent Transportation Society World Congress taking place later this year in Vienna, Austria, the importance of partnerships between organizations making our transport systems smarter, and how Streetline is helping cities with the pressing challenges of parking.

How can a goliath international company reach the brilliant amateurs who will shape the next generation of tech? Pit them head to head in an entrepreneurial Hunger Games. I’d like to tell you about the one camp mostly likely to attract future billionaires of the world, but first, the back story.

There’s a parking lot in front of Junkees Clothing Store, and the owner says she’s lucky. Too often, she says, other business owners in the area complain the two-hour parking limit in the neighborhood isn’t being enforced, and they are missing out on additional customers. “On a business to make it, you’ve got to turn it and burn it. So the 2-hour parking is perfect to get a sandwich, a coffee, or to go into a dress shop,” says Jessica Schneider of Junkees.

Under the motto “Smarter on the way”, the exhibition at this year’s ITS World Congress will bring together all of the important players in the field of intelligent transport systems. The exhibition will show the huge amount of potential there is for improving our everyday lives by implementing ITS systems. The exhibitors will cover all aspects of transport systems: from complex information and communication systems and increasingly advanced navigation and payment systems to security, ecology and electromobility.

Here’s how Zia Yusuf, president and CEO of Streetline, describes the new smart parking app Parker: “Driving through the streets of Los Angeles for the first time, I remember asking myself if, perhaps, this was the city where the phrase ‘driving in circles’ was coined. Finding a parking space in the City of Angels isn’t easy; one yearlong study found drivers in a 15-square-block district in Los Angeles drove in excess of 950,000 miles searching for a space, producing 730 tons of carbon dioxide in the process. That’s a lot of circling the block to find a parking spot, but it’s the reality in L.A.

From his ability to fly to X-ray vision and other enhanced senses, Superman has among the best-known catalog of powers. Coming from another planet, it’s only to be expected that he’d be more than just “a little different.”

Enalee E. Bounds has been running Ellicott’s Country Store on Main Street in historic Ellicott City for 50 years, telling customer after customer that they have stepped into a house that could be the oldest “duplex” in the country — built in the late 17th or early 18th century — and how Mr. Walker lived on one side, Mr. Chandler on the other.

Parking is a pain. Searching for a spot transforms time and gasoline into stress and CO2. Studies estimate that 30 percent of the traffic in central business districts is produced by drivers cruising for parking while IBM’s 2011 Global Parking Survey noted that drivers spent an average of 20 minutes looking for a parking spot. This is the driving force (sorry) behind a new wave of urban systems that use sensors and analytics to make parking more efficient.

Streetline, a startup based in Foster City, California, uses mobile sensors, web applications, and analytics to collect, transmit, and analyze data from parking meters and parking spaces. The company is transforming parking operations into digital ecosystems to the benefit of the cities, the drivers, parking lot operators, and local merchants.

A familiar sight at Metro’s metered lots is that of a customer searching for coins to feed the parking meter. Priced at $1/hour, that can add up to a lot of quarters or dollar coins. Starting Monday, July 30, 2012, at the Fort Totten and Rockville Metrorail stations, Metro is introducing a new parking meter technology from Parkmobile that will allow customers to pay for parking using a smartphone app or over the phone. It’s the same payment system widely in use in the District of Columbia, but with an extra twist: within seconds, thanks to sensing technology from Streetline, the time you pay actually displays on the meter.

So it’s 2012 and we don’t have any flying cars (yet) but that doesn’t mean driving should be straight out of the Flintstones. There’s a number of tools out there turning driving into a high-tech event.

There are about 1 billion cars on the world’s roads today. By mid-century, forecasts have that number climbing to 4 billion. Meanwhile, Congress is mired in a debate over whether to pass a new highway bill. Senator Barbara Boxer, a chief negotiator of the pending bill, lamented recently that she was “embarrassed for the people of this country” that this measure had not been enacted. After all, she said, passing highway bills used to be as popular and as important as “motherhood and apple pie.”

Once upon a time – like, for a few thousand years – a guy pulled his horse up to the general store, tied him, bought some cod liver oil, tobacco and maybe a jug of whiskey, jawed a bit with the proprietor, and went on his way. The idea of being charged 25 cents per ten minutes to park a horse with a possible $125 fine if you were 30 seconds late untethering him was unheard of. Today, parking one’s ride is a $30 billion industry undergoing a revolution in technology which is not only changing how we park, but also enabling parking to be more sustainable and more customer-service oriented.

Today’s cities contain more than 50 per cent of the world’s population, account for 75 per cent of global energy consumption and emit 70 per cent of greenhouse gas. They face challenges driven by changing demographics, scarcity of resources, such as energy and water, pollution, overloaded physical and social infrastructure, traffic congestion, and crime.

Wim Elfrink of Cisco Systems and Zia Yusuf of Streetline Inc. discuss how data from the crowd can build intelligent cities at The Economist’s Ideas Economy: Information 2012 event in San Francisco, California.

Smart cities need a smart infrastructure to get ahead and draw more young talent in, according to Wim Elfrink, chief globalisation officer of Cisco Systems. Speaking during a panel discussion about app developers and intelligent cities during The Economist’s two-day summit about big data and information on Tuesday afternoon, Elfrink explained that a smarter city has one network with everything connected rather than current models where most city departments and utilities each have their own network and databases that don’t talk to each other.

A new website and app promises to help drivers heading downtown find parking. The tools, www.parkdowntown.com, were created by the Knoxville Central Business Improvement District (CBID). “The CBID is committed to helping improve the parking in downtown” said Michele Hummel, CBID Director. “This includes letting the public know about all the available parking options, and helping them find their way there.”

Studies have found that 30 percent of all traffic congestion stems from drivers looking for a place to park. All too often the prices for on-street parking are set too low. When the price of on-street parking is set too low the competition for cheap on-street parking leads to circling for available spaces. Traffic, travel time, and pollution all increase, making parking very inefficient.

If you drive to do business in a heavily traveled urban area, chances are you’ll get caught up in a search for parking. You know the drill. You circle a block several times, slowing down whenever you catch a glimpse of someone who might be opening up a space. Your hopes rise as a woman walks toward her car, but then she opens her trunk, throws in a package, and walks away to do more shopping or business. You drive on, finding a spot only much later. Meanwhile, a few blocks away, there are plenty of spots, but there’s no good way for you to know that.

A new program unveiled Monday is poised to change the way Los Angeles drivers find and pay for parking, according to the mayor. The LA Express Park pilot program pairs real-time data from 6,000 parking spaces to a mobile application that lets users find, reserve and even pay for parking through their phones.

Watch Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and representatives from the Japanese American Citizens League, Historic Downtown Business Improvement District, Latino Theatre Company, and Gallery Row talk about the LA ExpressPark program, which uses smart parking technology to make parking downtown a whole lot easier.

An illustrated video explanation of LA ExpressPark™, an advanced parking system in downtown Los Angeles developed with Xerox, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and Streetline. Watch to learn how real-time parking technology enables downtown Los Angeles drivers to find a parking space quickly and easily, and also helps reduce traffic congestion as well as emissions.

Drivers in downtown Los Angeles may have more time on their hands starting today. LA ExpressPark™ goes live, an advanced parking system developed by Xerox and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), that applies new technology and demand-based pricing to increase the availability of limited parking spaces, relieve traffic congestion and reduce air pollution.