News Release

A UCSD Startup Expansion - Smart Transportation Solution

Smart transportation/parking is one of the most critical components of cities and campuses. Most UC San Diego students, employees, and visitors have experienced the frustration of trying to find a parking space in congested campus areas. Transportation Services’ latest campus parking space tally was 17,980 — excluding campus housing allocated spaces. Imagine if you could access live parking availability for all campus parking lots from an app before you arrive. Currently, only 1,245 of them in new Athena parking structure are connected to a parking guidance system. The investment required to monitor all campus parking facilities using existing technologies would outweigh the benefits. To address this problem, Visionful, a student-led startup of UC San Diego alumni and students are working on new technology to make it happen.

Left to right: CEO Payam Vaezi, CTO Kamran Alipour and COO Masoud Jalali from team Visionful

Visionful's solution for automated parking occupancy and enforcement

Visionful is enabling cities and transit agencies to leverage AI technology as a tool to enhance the public realm and improve the life quality of all urban residents. Visionful provides artificial intelligent vision-based solutions for quick access, affordable, equitable and sustainable transportation options throughout cities. Their first product is a smart camera module mounted on the poles or walls of parking lots. Visionful’s network of smart cameras powered by a graphics processing unit and artificial intelligence identifies empty spaces in parking lots and automates the enforcement processes. Its cutting-edge algorithm and edge computing hardware design make their solution significantly more accurate and affordable than existing ones. Drivers get real-time vacancy information from Visionful’s app that can be connected to other mobile apps and, ultimately, self-driving cars. The system also notifies enforcement staff when there is a violation, or a vehicle’s parking permit has expired so compliance officers can more efficiently provide parking compliance. These features make Visionful a low-risk, cost-effective investment that could solve the campus parking management and predictability problem.

 Resource Management & Planning department is working with the Visionful team to improve the transportation and parking system of the campus. Have successfully validated the technology, the project is expanding to other parking lots within UC San Diego campus. Successful implementation on our campus opens the door for Visionful to approach other schools and potential target markets. They aspire to join the Smart Cities community by connecting intelligent parking and other infrastructures with drivers and future driverless cars to save drivers time, money and ultimately reduce our carbon footprint.

Visionful team is growing very fast and needs additional expertise for business development and enterprise sales. They are looking for a self-motivated person with a business background to help build the partnership with municipalities, campuses, and strategic partners as well as make relationships with potential investors and industry leaders.