From Technology review: This fall, San Francisco will implement the largest mesh network for monitoring parking to date. Around 6,000 wireless sensors from the San Francisco company Streetline will be fixed alongside as many parking spots, monitoring both parking availability and the volume and speed of passing traffic. The city hopes that displaying information from the sensors on Web maps, smart phones, and signs on the street will reduce the traffic and pollution caused by circling cars.

A mesh network differs from a typical wireless network in that there’s no central transmitter: every node can transmit to every other node. Mesh networks have generally been used for environmental monitoring, or to grant wireless devices Internet access.

The sensors in Streetline’s monitoring system don’t have any wires, which makes installation cheaper and easier than tearing up roads to put down cables.

Jim Reich, the vice president of engineering at Streetline, suggests that the increased information will help people make better decisions, based on projections of “how much of their time is actually going to be wasted driving around.” He says that the system can suggest transit alternatives at the same time that it displays parking availability, and that it will eventually be able to predict whether parking spots will be available in a particular location by the time you get there. “Our goal with parking management is to help the city set the right prices and policies for parking based on actual demand, to smooth usage, and [to] improve overall efficiency,” says Reich.