Parking Allocation for Smart Cities

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of technology-driven parking allocation is an important component of building smarter, more sustainable cities. As urbanization intensifies, conventional parking systems, reliant on static planning and manual oversight, are increasingly mismatched with the demands of modern mobility. In contrast, parking allocation driven by emerging technologies is becoming a critical enabler of smart city objectives. By harnessing innovations such as IoT sensors, machine learning, and cloud-based platforms, cities can transform parking from a fragmented resource into a dynamic, interconnected component of urban infrastructure. This shift not only addresses immediate challenges like traffic congestion and emissions but also supports long-term goals of resource efficiency, equity, and climate resilience—cornerstones of the smart city vision. The core of smart parking allocation is to optimize space utilization, reduce vehicle travel time, and seamlessly integrate with broader transportation networks. For instance, IoT-enabled sensors provide granular occupancy insights, while AI algorithms predict demand fluctuations across temporal and spatial dimensions. These technologies collectively empower cities to dynamically adjust parking availability, balance commercial, residential, and public needs and minimize environmental impact. Such advancements are not merely incremental improvements, they represent a paradigm shift in urban governance, where technological agility drive equitable, citizen-centric solutions.

This Special Issue invites papers related to parking allocation for smart cities. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Cutting edge methodology for parking allocation.
• Dynamic parking demand prediction and space optimization.
• Integration of parking allocation and urban mobility systems.
• Sustainable and equitable parking allocation solutions.
• Environmental impact mitigation through optimized parking allocation.
• Adaptive reuse of parking spaces in autonomous vehicle eras.
• Parking allocation strategies for disaster preparedness
• Case studies and best practices related to parking allocation.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Zhenyu Mei
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Future Transportation is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• parking allocation
• parking planning
• parking system optimization