Communications of the ACM

felt accessible parking violations were not adequately being addressed by law enforcement. However, the app’s appeal extends beyond those who are directly or indirectly affected by disabilities.

“We have people who don’t identify with the disability community—they just see this as an issue,” Marsh says. “Typically, they download the app because they are angry when they see a violation, and they see there’s no other way” to adequately address the issue, since these parking violations are often of low priority to police departments.

Once downloaded, the app asks users to capture three photos of an alleged violation (one from the front capturing the lack of an accessible-parking placard, one from the rear to capture the license plate, and a third photo capturing the violation itself).

Marsh says the app makes it easier to collect verified instances of accessible parking violations, since it captures photos and stamps them with the phone’s geolocation data, along with time and date information.

Parking Mobility currently has
more than 500,000 users worldwide,
broken into two groups. Casual users
can be located anywhere, and their vi-
olation reports are automatically col-
lected by Parking Mobility, which then
passes along the data to the relevant
municipalities to highlight the prob-
lem of accessible parking violations,
with the eventual goal of creating a
partnership between the jurisdiction
and a second group of users, known as
citizen volunteers, who are deputized
and allowed to issue parking citations
via the app.
“Every report that comes into our
system is reviewed by our staff or one
of our board members,” Marsh says,
noting any reports submitted by ca-
sual users that do not capture enough
or proper evidence of a violation are
rejected, along with an explanation
The Parking Mobility
App documents
accessible
parking violations
by stamping photos
of the violations
with the phone’s
geolocation data,
along with date
and time.
of why the submission was rejected.
However, for users that have been gone
through the training and have been
deputized by their local law enforce-
ment department, submissions must
“have to have the elements that can
stand up in court.”
Currently, Parking Mobility has
partnerships with jurisdictions in Tex-
as, Kansas, and Oregon, and is nego-
tiations with jurisdictions in Florida,
Georgia, North and South Carolina,
Arizona, and Colorado.

Still, whether a partnership has been struck or not, “we encourage the use of the Parking Mobility App everywhere,” Marsh says. “Reports in no-partner communities are as important, if not more so, than reports which result in citations, [because] data from reports is the only way to get communities to issue citations.”

Further Reading

Fixed Blocked in Three Cities: https:// nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/10/15/ fixed-app-that-fights-parking-tickets- blocked-in-3-cities/ Parking Mobility: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vyCax5yVyC8

Keith Kirkpatrick is principal of 4K Research & Consulting, LLC, based in Lynbrook, N Y.

2016 NAE MEMBERS INCLUDE COMPUTER SCIENTISTS

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) recently elected 80 new members and

22 new foreign members.

NAE membership honors
those who have made outstanding
contributions to “engineering
research, practice, or education,
including, where appropriate,
significant contributions to the
engineering literature,” and
to “the pioneering of new and
developing fields of technology,
making major advancements in
traditional fields of engineering,
or developing/implementing
innovative approaches to
engineering education.”
The following computer
scientists were among the 80
newest NAE members:
˲ Thomas E. Anderson,
Warren Francis and Wilma
Kolm Bradley Endowed Chair
in Computer Science and
Engineering, University of
Washington.
˲ Dan Boneh, professor of
computer science and electrical
engineering, Stanford University.
˲ Frederick R. Chang, director
of the Darwin Deason Institute
for Cyber Security, Bobby B.
Lyle Endowed Centennial
Distinguished Chair in Cyber
Security, and professor in the
department of computer science
and engineering, Lyle School of
Engineering, Southern Methodist
University.
˲ Albert G. Greenberg,
distinguished engineer and
director, Azure Networking,
Microsoft Corp.
˲ Mehdi Hatamian, senior
vice president of engineering,
Broadcom Corp.
˲ Mary Cynthia Hipwell,
vice president of engineering,
Bühler, Plymouth, MN.
˲ Paul E. Jacobs, executive
chairman, Qualcomm Inc.
˲ Anil K. Jain, University
Distinguished Professor,
department of computer science
and engineering, Michigan State
University.
˲ David S. Johnson, visiting
professor of computer science,
Columbia University.
˲ Charles E. Leiserson,
Edwin Sibley Webster Professor,
department of electrical
engineering and computer
science, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
˲ Bruce G. Lindsay, IBM
Fellow Emeritus, IBM Almaden
Research Center.
˲ Arati Prabhakar, director,
U. S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency.
˲ John R. Treichler, president,
Raytheon Applied Signal
Technology.
˲ Stephen M. Trimberger,
fellow, Xilinx, Inc..
One new NAE foreign
member also is focused on
computer science:
˲ Geoffrey E. Hinton,
distinguished emeritus
professor, department of
computer science, University
of Toronto, and distinguished
researcher, Google Inc.