Manufacturer of navigation and mapping products TomTom has introduced a new service to assist drivers finding parking spaces.

Initially, the service will be available as a data feed for 25 cities in Europe, with additional geo-expansion to follow.

TomTom's head of traffic and travel information Ralf-Peter Schäfer said: “TomTom On-Street Parking offers drivers peace of mind and a less stressful parking experience, in addition to helping them save time and money.

“The service also helps reduce congestion in cities and thus lower CO² emissions, as well as enabling cities to better understand and manage street parking inventory to improve urban mobility”.

"TomTom On-Street Parking offers drivers peace of mind and a less stressful parking experience."

TomTom's On-Street Parking will complement the existing Off-Street Parking information service, which is already available to its customers. To further enhance the parking experience, TomTom will publish pricing and restriction information where available.

The navigation products maker will take advantage of its huge GPS data to determine where drivers intend to park vehicles and at what times of the day.

Equipped with this information, the service will provide drivers with the probability of finding a parking spot on a street level, as well as the average search-time for a spot.

The new On-Street Parking service could be used by autonomous vehicles to seamlessly find a parking spot and park themselves.

Image: TomTom introduces On-Street Parking service. Photo: courtesy of Business Wire.