For those practicing creative visualizing techniques, similar to methods used by Olympic gold medalists who had envisioned themselves surging past their opponents at the finish line, finding a parking space ahead of time is a typical experience. But for those unwilling to learn such meditation techniques, what about a cutting edge navigation tool that will do the work for you? Inrix, a traffic data provider to several carmakers, debuted such a product in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Inrix Parking provides live information on available parking spaces and prices that’s sent directly to drivers. Previously, there have been separate smartphone apps available, but Inrix is aggregating all the needed data on an international basis, and integrating it with navigation and traffic information. Parking information tends to be very fragmented with a lot of independent operators and a lot of information is lacking on the internet, said Scott Sedlik, VP of product planning and market development at Inrix. To deal with that challenge, Inrix is partnering with two companies that collect parking information – ParkMe in North America and Parkopedia in Europe. So far, they’ve found access to 18,000 parking facilities in North America and 42,000 in Europe.
