News Story

Milton Keynes City Council adopts ParkJam to Ease Car Parking Stress

John Domingue, Thursday 24 Jan 2013

Yesterday Milton Keynes Council began promoting KMi’s mobile app ParkJam. This free app lets drivers check parking availability from any Android phone. The app uses Linked Data technology to integrate information about parking availability from multiple sources including the electronic billboard signage system which runs in Milton Keynes city centre, and from drivers themselves who can report car park availability by just tapping on the app’s interface.

For this initial deployment we have enhanced the detail captured for the car parks in central Milton Keynes and at the OU’s Walton Hall campus, but the app can be used globally as the underlying map data is automatically imported from the volunteer mapping project OpenStreetMap.org. Additionally, ParkJam users can easily add data on any car parks that are missing.

For the OU’s Walton Hall campus deployment OU security staff add data on the availability of car parks as they fill up during the morning and after lunch.

ParkJam is available from our website (parking.kmi.open.ac.uk), from the Google Play app store (search for “ParkJam”), and you can like it on Facebook (facebook.com/parkjamapp) and follow on Twitter (twitter.com/parkjamapp).