Development of a Smart Parking Management System for Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka

Parking congestion on the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) campus in Awka has become a growing challenge as vehicular traffic increases with enrollment expansion, resulting in disorganized parking, delays, and security concerns. This study develops a smart parking management system for the UNIZIK campus, using IoT-based parking slot occupancy sensors and a mobile application to guide drivers to available spaces in real time. Infrared proximity sensors were installed at each simulated parking slot, with slot status transmitted via an MQTT protocol to a Raspberry Pi broker and displayed on a React Native mobile application. An administrative web dashboard provides parking usage analytics and historical occupancy data. System development followed an iterative prototyping methodology. A pilot deployment was simulated using a 30-slot parking layout model within the UNIZIK Computer Engineering laboratory, with vehicle presence emulated through controlled sensor actuation. Results indicate that the system accurately reported slot occupancy with 98.3 percent sensor accuracy. Mobile application slot availability updates were delivered within 1.8 seconds of state changes. Simulated search time for available parking was reduced by 71 percent compared to manual visual scanning. The study concludes that IoT-enabled smart parking systems are technically implementable and operationally beneficial for the UNIZIK campus environment. Recommendations include field installation across the university's main car parks and integration with campus security surveillance systems.