Now, an iPhone app to find parking spots!

Washington: The headache of finding a parking space in a busy city may soon be eliminated by a new app available for iPhone users.This 1.99-dollar app, called Parker, was created by San Francisco-based company Streetline in an attempt to bring the concept of parking into the 21st century, reports ABC News.

Parker works with a system of battery-powered sensors installed in parking spaces. The sensors communicate with a receiver located on a nearby lamp pole, which in turn sends information to a data center in Dallas. From Dallas, the information is sent to the iPhone app. The app shows the number of open parking spaces on any given street and directs you to them via Google Maps. Each sensor costs 300 dollars for installation plus a 120-dollar yearly software license fee. Streetline CEO Zia Yusuf hopes to see his technology used on all phones, navigational devices and anywhere mapping info is used. So far, Streetline has sold around 1,400 copies of the app in Los Angeles. Parker has also launched on Roosevelt Island in New York City and is soon arriving at the Fort Totten Metro station in Washington, D.C. IBM in 2010 named Streetline the ‘Global Entrepreneur of the year’, after it won several competitions IBM staged to look for companies working on a ‘healthier planet’. Streetline was chosen because it has a very attractive proposition for transportation solutions. It can help reduce traffic in cities, and people find parking more efficiently, according to IBM spokesman Tim Willeford. Streetline was formed by Tod Dykstra in 2006 to bring new technology to solve parking issues. ANI