This is scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher in Tagyatta.

If you drive in a city, you've no doubt experienced the frustration of circling block after block

cruising for parking.

But scientists who study that phenomenon have a solution

to free up more spots.

You make them more expensive,

so people have to decide whether to park farther away and pay less or closer and pay more.

It's Ak Benenson, a system scientist at Tel Aviv University.

San Francisco has piloted a program like that that raises parking rates based on demand,

and it's been shown to reduce cruising.

But the sensors required for those systems can cost millions of dollars to install and operate,

Benenson says. So instead, writing an I-Triplee intelligent

transportation systems magazine, he and his colleague near Fulman describe an

algorithm that can determine smart pricing without the use of sensors.

They tested it on the Israeli city of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv.

First, they divide the city into zones. They estimate the parking demand in each zone by calculating the number of apartments and offices there,

and then they factor in parking supply in the area, along with how wealthy potential parkers might be.

With that data, the algorithm suggested pricing for each zone that would guarantee a 90%

occupancy rate of parking spots citywide, meaning 10% of spots were always available to drivers willing to pay the price, regardless of neighborhood.

Of course, not everyone will agree that jacking up parking prices will ease driver frustrations. Like last time Benenson proposed hiking rates for city residents?

I've got about 100 reacts on the web and the 99 of them that said that they have never heard such a stupid

statement from the professors and I should be punished and they fired it.

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