ITS Research Program, UW
Seattle Center Parking Garage Status

This information is updated in real time by a program that listens to the parking-lot data stream available from the ITS Backbone.

This data stream was made possible by working together with Seattle Center and consultants from IBI Group. In 1999, Seattle Center installed a system to automatically track entries and exits from three of its parking lots. The system can also direct traffic to the nearest open parking facility, thanks to several electronic signs along adjacent roadways. As with most projects of this kind, the system generates potentially useful real-time data.

By using software developed at UW, the internal state of the system was transformed into a Self-Describing Data stream and made available to the rest of the world. One application of the data stream is to propagate any changes to the Seattle Center web server, which is then able to provide its own real-time parking status page (http://www.seattlecenter.com/transportation/scparking1.asp).