Patent ID: 7312722

Claim:
A method of managing a plurality of parking spaces including a plurality of full sized parking spaces and a plurality of compact parking spaces, comprising the steps of: accepting data indicating an occupancy status of at least a subset of the plurality of parking spaces; generating a parking database describing an availability of one or more of the parking spaces from the accepted data; accepting a request from a user, the request being for data describing the availability of the one or more of the parking spaces from the parking database; providing the data describing availability of the one or more of the parking spaces to the user; accepting a reservation request from the user, the reservation request including a license number of a vehicle and a parking space size selected from the group comprising compact and full-size; comparing the license number with a database of vehicles to confirm that the vehicle size is appropriate for the selected parking space size; and reserving at least one of the parking spaces in the subset of the parking spaces according to the accepted reservation request if the vehicle size is appropriate for the selected parking space size.