Patent ID: 8063797

Claim:
A method for collecting distributed parking information from two or more data collectors for use in a parking assistance system, the method comprising: receiving a first offset geocoded parking datum from a first image collection subsystem operated by a first data collector; storing said first offset geocoded parking datum in a parking information database; receiving a second offset geocoded parking datum from a second image collection subsystem operated by a second data collector located remotely from the first data collector; storing said second offset geocoded parking datum in said parking information database; and processing the first and second offset geocoded parking data to interpret parking information to be provided to the parking assistance system; wherein said first offset geocoded parking datum is specified to a geolocation more accurate than a geolocation on accuracy of said first image collection subsystem; and wherein said second offset geocoded parking datum is specified to a geolocation more accurate than a geolocation accuracy of said second image collection subsystem.