Newmarket awarded for tracking downtown parking with AI

The Town of Newmarket has received an award for a new pilot program tracking parking in a public lot by Riverwalk Commons.

The project is an artificial intelligence system that monitored the parking lot 24/7 while blurring faces and plates to gather data about the use of the lot. The Municipal Information Systems Association of Ontario (MISA) recognized Newmarket an excellence in municipal systems award June 19.

"Congratulations to the Town of Newmarket and all staff from various departments who played an integral role,” Newmarket Mayor John Taylor said in a news release.

The award goes to an Ontario municipality that has successfully undertaken significant initiatives or set a new standard other municipalities may follow.

Newmarket partnered with Loop (Parksense+), a graduate company of the local Treefrog Accelerator Program, to launch the project.

The project utilized strategic cameras to monitor parking spaces 24/7 in real-time. Each parking spot is captured on camera and monitored, categorized by availability and length of time the parking spot is occupied. The town said the goal is to use the gathered data to make informed decisions about parking downtown.

“The data collected allows the town to better understand where and when parking pressures occurred,” the municipality said. “Compar(ing) the data to real-time events (i.e. during concerts and festivals) helps visualize seasonal parking demand and where and how many additional parking spots can be added.”

The municipality showcased some of the data it gathered, such as finding a 13.9 per cent occupancy rate at the Riverwalk Commons parking lot at 6 a.m., increasing to 80.6 per cent later in the day, with many spots occupied over a long period. On April 19, the average parking spot occupancy from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. was 73.9 per cent, while the average occupancy for the entire 24-hour day was 36.1 per cent.

Downtown parking has been an issue in Newmarket for several years. The town has responded with a parking expansion put in place this year at the former site of the Newmarket Tennis Club, with plans to build it up further to a multi-level parking facility.

York Region also received an award this year from MISA for an AI tracking project. It involved installing AI cameras on York Region Transit buses to report issues at bus stops and municipal infrastructure along regional roads, such as garbage, graffiti, obstruction or damage. The goal was in part to improve detection and response to these issues.

The awards are decided on by a panel of municipalities, which selects award recipients from among all nominations.

Newmarket said it is working to expand the project to other downtown parking lots to provide more insight for planning. Newmarket also suggested the technology could be used, but not limited to, overtime and illegal parking detection, as well as offering real-time parking data and wayfinding to visitors.

“With the success of this pilot program, we hope to continue to monitor the data gathered to make data-driven decisions around parking behaviours, trends and usage that will contribute to the town's economic vibrancy,” Taylor said.