This is such a simple idea; it’s simply a way to show if a given parking space in a parking garage is occupied or not, from a good distance away. It’s just using overhead lights – green if the spot is open, red if occupied – but the difference it makes for the act of driving around a parking garage looking for a spot is – and I know this sounds kind of hyperbolic because I’m just talking about a parking garage – dramatic. I’ve discussed this with a few people, and found that while these seem to exist fairly commonly in parking garages in Europe, China, Australia and other places around the world, they’re relatively rare here in America, and I think that should change.
It’s such an obvious solution! And a good one! No more would you be fooled by a tiny Miata nestled between a pair of elephantine SUVs, because the light above the spot would see all you can’t! You could just scan down the aisles overhead, looking for that emerald glow that means there’s safe harbor for your car, covering far more area far more quickly than driving by the rows of cars, desperately scanning.
I actually had never encountered such a thing until I saw this tweet:
Absolute freaking genius. Red/green lights automatically come on for taken/free parking spaces. Never seen this before and makes finding a space so much easier, especially when it’s full of giant SUVs.
???? pic.twitter.com/gaVf7UCR9C
— Tim Oldland (@Tim_Oldland) July 29, 2024
As I talked to people, I found that this actually exists for bathrooms, too:
They use the same system at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport above toilets. pic.twitter.com/K5JiB7cHox
— Peter R. (@PRydlakowski) July 29, 2024
…which is also fantastic, saving people from the bowel-chilling horror of hearing that stall door rattle and clank as you’re crafting your deposit, praying for solitude. 
But! We’re still a car blog, not a bathroom blog (yet), and so let’s stay on these parking spot light things. They seem to be made by a number of companies, with a few different designs. There’s UFO-looking ones that communicate wirelessly to ground sensors, and there’s also systems where the lights are mounted on a common rail, using ultrasonic transducers to determine if the spot is empty or occupied.
Some of these give a strange Christmas-y look to parking garages, with all those red-and-green lights, and that also brings up an interesting flaw with these systems that likely should have been considered, but can also be easily solved.
In reading some other online forums where people like me, formerly ignorant of such systems and now dazzled by them, I found that there was a group of people who could not get the benefit from these setups: color blind people.
Specifically red/green colorblindness, which is the most common kind, affecting 8% of men globally and 0.5% of women. To them, these rows of lights are the same color, and communicate pretty much no useful information beyond the fact that there is electricity in the garage. [Ed Note: These are quite common in Germany, and they use sensors to know when a car is parked. The sensors also tell you how many spots are left on each floor, with the readout on a display — this would still be useful even to colorblind folks. -DT].
But it would be so easy to fix! If the system was changed to leave the lights off if a car is present and only illuminate if the spot is free, then color blind people and everyone else could easily see what spots were open, just by looking for the lights. It would likely save electricity, too, since an occupied spot would have its light off, taking no power (well, assuming it’s a commonly-full lot).
The one thing that may require color is that handicapped spots in many of these systems show up as blue, which is a useful addition. Hopefully, blue should be distinguishable from other light even for people with red/green color blindness.
The main point is that some system like this could make the parking garage spot-finding experience so much better. This feels even more useful than those numeric signs that tell you how many spots are free, because they add the element of location to the system, which is, of course, useful as hell. I mean, you can’t not park in a location, right? It’s a big factor.
I get that there is some initial costs to adding systems like this, and those of you reading this who own parking garages may be reluctant to invest in new equipment, but I think the quality of experience you’ll be giving to your parking customers will be worth it. Look, maybe you eat dogfood for a couple of weeks – I’m okay with that! Especially if that dogfood is Ol’ Roy, which has a Country Stew complete with corn, peas and carrots! Why, with dogfood like this, I bet every parking garage owner will happily upgrade their systems to include visual free parking spot indicators!
Anyway, the parking garage world, especially here in America, has plenty of room for improvement. Simple solutions like this I think would go a long way.
There isn’t a parking garage within two hour’s drive of here with these.
Wait–there isn’t a parking garage within two hour’s drive of here….
And then the space is too small because Mr. Tinydick and Mr. Weepecker have encroached on it with their stupid big-ass SUVs.
I dunno, have you seen how expensive dog food is these days?!
Colony Square in Atlanta has these.
These have become popular around Boston, especially newer garages.
I first saw these in Medellin, Colombia, about 20 years ago now! It was nice driving into a parking garage that not only showed how many spots were available upon entering, but also being able to scan for the area that had the most green lights and go straight there!
Is there a disco mode? Or Airplane Runway mode that guides you to the open spots? If it does not have those options, fugggettaboutit.
Pretty much every sizeable garage in Vegas has these. They’ve got the readout with spots available as well.
I’m not sure “not common in the US” is the right word – they’re not universal, yet, but they are common.
These… aren’t popular? Like every garage near me has these.
I’ve never seen it before in my life. I would love if it became popular around here.
Never seen them in the UK.
Same here – this is the first I’ve heard of them. Good idea though – but no clue how the person leading the way on fitting them got the budget past the owners of the car-parks….
Somebody needs to get Jason out and about in the world sometime. As others have mentioned they are in use in the US and have been for a number of years. As mentioned some of the systems will tell you at the entrance how many spaces are available and then again on each floor. Also they are in use in all the Costco Gas stations that I use.
Maybe Jason just hasn’t been in a parking garage? The last garage I was in was 3 years ago and it didn’t have them.
Bush Intercontinental airport here in Houston has them. They’re about 90% accurate, but if you pick a level with 50 or more open spots they’re a fantastic way to find something without trying too hard. Plus the signs on the ground floor with the number of open spots on every level (which seem to be about 98% accurate) is a godsend for finding parking there.
They are common all over Europe, because they are a weak, decadent country (fight me). By contrast, America is strong and ascendant, so that’s the reason.
It’s in almost every car park in Paris nowadays. Even supermarket car parks have these lights.
The AWS headquarters here in Houston has these, I’ve appreciated them the couple of times I’ve visited there.
Philly International Airport has this system. Sounds great but they are never accurate. The system probably requires some bit of maintenance, and like everything else in the parking garage at the airport that doesn’t collect $, it’s not getting done.
Some of the Costco gas stations have color+shape for their gas pumps. Very useful.
We have these at work and also at SeaTac airport. The work ones are in a 5000+ space garage and they actually feed into a signage system that show you how many spots are available in a particular garage sector. It also uses a third color to denote “conditional” parking like HC, expectant mothers, loading zone, etc. Pretty slick.