As land values skyrocket, parking rates tend to increase. In Tokyo, parking in the center of the city can cost upward of 30 dollars per hour, and finding a parking place can be difficult. Moreover, strict parking laws make much roadside parking illegal. Between parking and traffic problems, more and more people are ditching the car. However, the ultra-compact EV, TOYOTA i-ROAD was born for the cramped streets and heavy traffic of the city. We expect it to solve gridlock traffic. In addition to being agile, its size opens new possibilities for parking. In the future, compact mobility will be necessary in all urban areas. Using the i-ROAD, we initiated the OPEN ROAD PROJECT to bring freedom back to urban driving.

Our idea: to develop a new parking service for the i-ROAD, using the city’s wasted space. We turned our attention to Tokyo’s small unused spots to build a parking network where landowners shared spaces and locals drove and parked to find spaces. We recruited interested test pilots from the web who enjoyed daily mobility as the i-ROAD collected driving and location data. This data became the foundation of a system that autonomously discovered parking, increasing parking spots and making the project a success. The i-ROAD and this service could show more urban areas the advantages of driving the i-ROAD and parking in small spots. This new business model has the potential to improve society, and we're working hard to increase the i-ROAD's value.

We developed a prototype i-ROAD and a parking service to work with it, using an internet-connected logging system that collects driving and GPS data. The system gathered all user statuses, integrating driving data for time, positioning, and spaces that users rated highly for parking. Then over a year, we recruited test pilots through the website, loaning them the prototype and the parking service. As drivers went about their days driving and parking around Tokyo, we accumulated more and more data to develop a parking service that served drivers. As the drivers enjoyed their daily rides, they contributed to the data that ultimately led to discovering more parking spaces. We built a system that autonomously increased the number of parking spaces we found by leveraging the pleasure of driving the i-ROAD.