PARADA

Smart parking, designed for smarter campuses.

Capstone project · LPU Batangas BS Information Technology Scroll to explore ↓
01About
About the project

What is PARADA?

PARADA is a mobile and web-based smart parking management system designed to help drivers and parking administrators understand, manage, and monitor parking availability through a unified platform.

Instead of attempting to individually monitor every parking space, PARADA uses zone-based occupancy as its primary operational metric — the zone, not the individual slot, is the authoritative unit of availability.

Zone A
18 / 30 occupied12 available
Zone B
42 / 50 occupied8 available
Zone C
15 / 40 occupied25 available
02Problem
The problem

Parking should be easier to understand.

For drivers

Uncertainty about where capacity is available.

For administrators

Difficulty monitoring occupancy and parking activity manually.

For establishments

Disconnected parking operations and limited visibility into utilization.

PARADA brings these activities together through one connected system.

03Objective
Project objective

Our goal

To develop a smart parking management system that combines computer vision, license-plate recognition, zone-based occupancy monitoring, parking operations, mobile navigation, and web-based administration into a unified platform.

04How it works
How PARADA works

From arrival to receipt, one pipeline.

01
Vehicle arrives

The vehicle reaches a zone gate or entry point.

Zone A — entry point Gate
02
Zone-gate camera

The gate camera observes the vehicle and captures the license plate.

........ Capture frame locked
03
Computer vision + OCR

Image processing reads the plate text.

Captured image Computer vision Plate detection OCR ........
04
PARADA API

The API determines the vehicle, user, zone, reservation, and admission policy.

VehicleUserZoneReservationAdmission policy Parada API
05
Vehicle / user / guest resolution

The plate resolves to a registered vehicle and user, or a guest candidate under policy.

ABC 1234 Registered vehicle → registered user → session Guest candidate → guest admission policy
06
Occupancy + session

Zone occupancy and the parking session update in the same transaction.

Zone A occupancy 18 / 30 Session opened ABC 1234 · one authoritative transaction Occupancy and session commit together
07
Mobile + admin

Both clients read the same backend-authoritative state — drivers on mobile, administrators on the web dashboard.

Parada API state Mobile — driver Admin web — operations
08
Vehicle exits

The exit camera/OCR event enters the API.

Exit camera Plate capture OCR Parada API Vehicle leaves — exit event enters the API
09
Session completed + fee

The backend closes the session and calculates the fee where configured.

Session closed Plate ABC 1234 Zone A — Riverside Duration 02:14 Rate configured Fee Calculated
010203040506070809
05Zone-based
Why zone-based?

PARADA doesn't need to know every space individually.

PARADA treats the parking zone as the authoritative unit of availability. Physical parking spaces can still exist as inventory or layout information, but operational occupancy is represented at the zone level — this keeps the system accurate with standard gate cameras instead of a sensor on every slot.

06Features

Grouped by system module.

A modular breakdown of platform capabilities — from driver experience to intelligent infrastructure and operational control.

01

Driver features

  • Account registration and authentication
  • Multiple vehicle registration
  • Zone availability
  • Zone recommendation
  • Zone assignment
  • Reservations
  • Current parking status
  • Parking history
  • GPS navigation
  • Guest-related parking behavior
10 endpoints
02

Parking intelligence

Core
  • Camera-based vehicle observation
  • License plate recognition
  • OCR
  • Vehicle identification
  • Zone occupancy
  • Entry/exit processing
  • Guest admission
  • Session lifecycle
Live vision stackActive
03

Administration

  • Zone management
  • Capacity configuration
  • Camera configuration
  • Session monitoring
  • Reservation management
  • User and vehicle management
  • Violations
  • Appeals
  • Notifications
  • Analytics
  • Establishment configuration
11 controls
07Guest logic
Registered vehicle vs. guest

Guest admission is a policy decision, not a default.

Registered vehicle Guest vehicle Zone gate Camera Zone gate Camera ........ ........ Registered vehicle Guest candidate Registered user Guest policy Parking session Admit Deny

Guest admission is controlled by establishment-defined policies rather than treating every unidentified vehicle as automatically authorized.

08Mobile
Mobile experience

Parking from the driver's perspective.

01
Find parking

Live availability across every zone. See open spots before you even leave.

02
Choose your zone

Compare rates, limits, and restrictions. Filter by EV, accessible, or covered.

03
Reserve

Lock your bay in 2 taps. Guaranteed spot, instant confirmation.

04
Navigate

Turn-by-turn to your exact space. No more circling the block.

05
Track

Live timer, one-tap extension, and automatic checkout. All from your pocket.

09Admin
Admin experience

A control center for parking operations.

Administrators work in the web application; drivers use the mobile app. The dashboard is the operational surface for zones, cameras, sessions and anomalies.

PARADAoperations
🔍Search plates, users, zones…
A
Z
Total capacity120
◇
Occupied75
✓
Available45
∙
Active sessions8
Zone statuslive
AZone A18 / 30
North parking area · entry cam OK
BZone B42 / 50
East parking area · exit cam OK
CZone C15 / 40
South parking area · entry cam OK
Recent activitylive
ENTRYABC 1234Zone A09:42
EXITXYZ 5678Zone B09:38
ENTRYMNO 9999Zone C09:31
GUEST—Zone A09:19
Camera health
cam-a-entryONLINE
cam-a-exitONLINE
cam-b-entryDEGRADED
cam-c-entryONLINE
Flags
Unknown vehicle at Zone C gate
Zone A 60% — near full
Laptop showing the PARADA admin dashboard
Monitor
Zones, occupancy, sessions, cameras.
Manage
Zones, capacities, cameras, reservations, users, vehicles.
Respond
Violations, appeals, guest admission issues, anomalies.
Analyze
Parking activity and utilization.
10Config
Establishment configuration

PARADA is configurable.

Zones

  • Name
  • Code
  • Capacity
  • Status

Cameras

  • Identifier
  • Zone
  • Direction
  • Operational status

Policies

  • Guest policy
  • Reservation settings
  • Parking fees
  • Violation rules

Location

  • Address
  • Latitude
  • Longitude

This allows PARADA to adapt to different establishment layouts without changing the application's source code for every parking facility.

11Architecture
System architecture

The same journey, seen technically.

Section 04 showed what happens to a vehicle. This is how the system makes it happen: a camera event travels through vision/OCR into the API, which resolves identity, occupancy and sessions, persists them, and propagates the new state to both clients.

Zone Gate Camera Entry / exit vehicle events Computer Vision / OCR Python · FastAPI · OpenCV · EasyOCR PARADA API Node.js · Express · TypeScript User / Vehicle Resolution Registered or guest candidate Zones Occupancy Capacity − occupied Sessions & Fees Lifecycle, duration, fee Database PostgreSQL · Prisma Mobile Application React Native · Expo — drivers Admin Web Panel Next.js — operations vehicle event
● Animated packet = one camera eventVision reads → API decides → DB persists → clients read
12Stack
Technology stack

What it's built with.

Mobile

  • React Native
  • Expo
  • TypeScript

Web

  • Next.js
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS

Backend

  • Node.js
  • Express
  • TypeScript

Database

  • PostgreSQL
  • Prisma

Computer vision

  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • EasyOCR
  • OpenCV
13Security
Security

Designed with security in mind.

AuthenticationJWT-based authentication.
AuthorizationTwo roles: USER and ADMIN.
OwnershipUsers can only access their own parking-related records.
Camera trustCamera events use a separate authentication boundary.
Data integrityCritical parking operations are handled by the backend/domain layer and database constraints.
14Capstone
Research / capstone context

An academic project.

Lyceum of the Philippines University — Batangas

PARADA is developed as a capstone project for the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology program.

Capstone projectSmart parkingComputer visionOCRMobile applicationsWeb applications
15Journey
Project development journey

Systematically engineered.

01
Requirements
02
Architecture
03
Infrastructure
04
Database
05
Backend
06
Authentication
07
Parking operations
08
Admin web
09
Mobile
10
GPS
11
Computer vision
12
System integration
16Highlights
What makes PARADA interesting?

Built as one connected system.

Computer vision

Identifies vehicles from camera observations.

Zone intelligence

Makes availability understandable at the zone level.

Mobile + web

Drivers and administrators use connected interfaces.

Configurable

Parking facilities can configure zones, capacities, cameras, and policies.

Backend-authoritative

Critical parking state is managed centrally instead of being independently calculated by each client.

17Status
Current project status

Where the build stands.

Implemented

  • ✓Mobile application
  • ✓Admin web application
  • ✓Backend API
  • ✓PostgreSQL database
  • ✓Zone-based occupancy
  • ✓Reservations
  • ✓Zone assignment
  • ✓Guest admission
  • ✓GPS navigation
  • ✓Camera configuration

Continuing / evaluation

  • ○OCR / computer vision (real model)
  • ○Real-time integration
  • ○Full system integration
  • ○Testing + accuracy evaluation
  • ○Deployment
  • ○Documentation + final review
18Demo
Interactive demo

See the system in action.

Driver experience

Walk through finding, reserving, and navigating to a zone.

Administrator experience

See how operators monitor zones, sessions, and cameras.

System flow

Watch a vehicle move through capture, OCR, resolution, and exit.

19Transparency
Research / technical transparency

What PARADA currently demonstrates

PARADA demonstrates the integration of mobile development, web administration, backend services, database management, computer vision, OCR, GPS navigation, and configurable parking operations within a single system architecture.

The system is developed as a capstone prototype and evaluated based on functionality, integration, correctness, and system behavior. Formal accuracy evaluation and production deployment are treated separately from the functional implementation.

20Contact
Contact

Interested in PARADA?

Learn more about the project, explore the architecture, or get in touch with the team behind the system.