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One often-cited statistic: 30 percent of the cars in congested downtown areas are looking for parking. Whether this is accurate or not, it is certainly true that urban congestion and pollution is on the rise. Increasingly, cities are looking to greater connectivity to help solve this problem. In San Francisco, a new system is using connected meters to adjust parking prices up or down depending on demand. Now, German electronics company Bosch has come up with another idea. The company’s connected mobility solutions division has developed an IoT-based system that can tell drivers the location of nearby parking spaces, as well as the spaces’ exact size, cost and configuration.

Bosch’s system uses on-board sensors to collect information about parking spots. As the driver cruises for parking, the sensors can identify where there’s an opening and how much distance there is to the curb. This information is relayed to the cloud. Here it can then be distributed to other parkers in the area via their phone or an in-car screen. This information sharing allows drivers to head directly to available nearby parking options, instead of circling. The system could also one day allow driverless vehicles to find their own parking.

Around 60 percent of new vehicles already come equipped with parking sensors, and Bosch’s platform can function using the hardware in any automaker’s car. The data generated can be integrated with data on construction and street closings. Eventually, Bosch hopes to adapt the technology to include parking lots and garages.