Class project could lead to parking improvements and camera-monitored parking lots Class project could lead to parking improvements and camera-monitored parking lots

Parkmo, a class project started by Reed Schimmel and a team of WSU students, aims to make parking easier. It is a smartphone app that shows how full parking lots are and recommends the best parking lot for a student's schedule. It also provides automated parking enforcement. This is done by tracking the parking activity of every lot.

Since its conception in Fall 2015, Parkmo has been awarded the Koch Innovation Challenge, placed third in last year's Shocker New Venture Competition and will begin its first on campus test this April in the Morrison Hall parking lot.

Two cameras will be mounted to light poles outside Morrison Hall from tomorrow (Thursday, March 30) to Saturday, April 29. The cameras will track parking patterns as a test of a student's engineering project and business startup. The cameras read license plates, but those plates will not be associated with anyone's identity.