Patent ID: 8704680

Claim:
A large-area parking-monitoring system comprising a plurality of externally-powered re-configurable parking-monitoring devices including first and second monitoring devices, each of said monitoring devices comprising: a detector for generating parking occupancy data for a plurality of parking spaces; a medium-range wireless communication module for transmitting said parking occupancy data between selected ones of said parking-monitoring devices; and a long-range wireless communication module for transmitting collected parking occupancy data to a base station; wherein: said first monitoring device receives parking occupancy data from said second monitoring device via medium-range wireless communication signals and transmits collected parking occupancy data to said base station via long-range wireless communication signals in a first configuration; said second monitoring device receives parking occupancy data from said first monitoring device via medium-range wireless communication signals and transmits collected parking occupancy data to said base station via long-range wireless communication signals in a second configuration.