The French start up "SmartGrains" launches in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Paris, France) an intelligent parking guidance system. It is a premiere in Europe!

Searching for a parking space, or the story of a significant waste of time... On average, we spend one year of our lives trying to find a parking place: for drivers it is a complete waste of time, money and energy, whilst the community is exposed to tons of unnecessary toxic emissions every day. With almost 30 percent of traffic coming from cars wearily circling the blocks and looking for parking spaces, more than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide could be saved this way every year for a big city like Paris.

ParkSense guides the drivers towards available parking spaces - This societal as much as ecological challenge is about to be taken up by the French company Smart-Grains. Winner of SFR Young Talents Innovation contest, SmartGrains will get to deploy in the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux a vast network of intelligent sensors. Energy-autonomous, these wireless sensors detect the vehicles and then communicate with one another, exchanging information in real-time.

Available on the iPhone starting November 23rd, the mobile application ParkSense will allow to locate in one click the available spaces in the city center, without any stress and unnecessary pollution. Born from the association between three public labs, two private groups and a young innovative company from the Paris region, the experiment will be carried out on around one hundred parking spaces initially, then will be extended to three hundred spaces in March and several thousand by the end of 2011.

A technological feat, result of the collaboration between public and private research. At the heart of the system, a technology of communicating sensors inspired by the works of the American army in the 1960s, and improved over the years by the French company SmartGrains in collaboration with INRIA (French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control), CNAM (National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts) and CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research). Both the numerous innovations and the significant ecological potential of the system were greeted on many occasions: Grand Prix of Innovation of the city of Paris, SFR Young Talents Innovation contest, National Contest of the French Ministry of Research or yet again Tremplin Entreprises (Enterprise Springboard), organized by the French Senate.

With an estimate of two billion cars running on the streets by 2030, we clearly understand why numerous cities, such as New York and Singapore, have already shown their interest in the matter.

• To watch the official video (in French)