Many agree, it is not a question of “if” autonomous vehicles will disrupt transportation – but when! Though the global coronavirus pandemic has slowed development for the industry’s key players, progress is still underway. Additionally – the surge of stricter hygiene protocol has strengthened the use cases of autonomous cars. Some automakers are already close to releasing driverless cars in the next year. Meanwhile, the U.S. department of transportation continues to pave the way, legally, for autonomous vehicles to flourish.

Autonomous cars will change the entire experience of driving. As might be obvious, parking is about to get a redesign. Some aspects of parking will remain the same while others, like the cost to park, may change. We will be exploring these changes over our next three blog posts. We’ll cover the most revolutionary change first: a possible reduction in parking hazards.

Autonomous Driving Means Less Collisions

Currently, around 20% of auto accidents are parking related. That’s nearly 1 in 5! Many of these accidents are caused by confusion. Parking can be particularly complex in dense, urban areas for both human and autonomous drivers. However, autonomous driving technology is likely to overcome this challenge within the next decade, meaning that parking collisions (and headaches!) could become a thing of the past.

As parking is a chaotic aspect of driving, only humans are currently able to park a vehicle safely. However, some automakers are already building systems that can handle this “human-only” task. Ford is developing a Collaborative Parking System, which allows autonomous vehicles to coordinate with one another, streamlining the parking process. The automaker found that drivers can spend more than a day each year looking for parking – a situation they hope their system can remedy.

Communication between driverless cars will decrease the unpredictability of the parking process, as humans tend to be less predictable than software. In addition to cameras and other monitoring features, autonomous cars could eventually be more predictable drivers than human beings! We expect that advances in AI will only further the possibilities for fully driverless parking. Currently, AI has shown promise in helping a vehicle manage emergency control of a vehicle, which could prevent parking-related collisions.

Imagine: Parking without the stress and hazard of accidents! We believe that parking has room to improve with the use of technology. But until fully-automated parking is an accessible reality for the average person, we encourage you to join our beta test for ParkSwap. Currently, the beta is only open to New York residents but we will soon expand to other regions.

ParkSwap Application Beta test links:

TestFlight (iOS) :
https://testflight.apple.com/join/KWLv2DO9

Android:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gnqngFg5eTWFzMB0goqjCvwOV4MWNXsx/view?usp=sharing