Mathematician Claims to Have Cracked the Crowded Mall Parking Problem
Is there a better way to find a parking spot during the busy shopping season?
— -- If there is one place in need of holiday cheer this time of year, it seems it would be parking lots.
The crush of cars all seeking the same spots in mall parking lots to do holiday shopping can seem to bring out the Grinch in everyone, but one mathematician says it does not have to be so.
Joseph Pagano crunched the numbers –- including how long the average person shops -– and says you should find an aisle with at least 10 cars on each side and park your car and wait.
Statistically, according to Pagano’s model, someone will come out of the store and a parking spot will become available within nine minutes.
“Assuming that these are all shoppers’ cars and the basic assumptions, this model, it works like sure fire,” said Pagano, a former math teacher.
Other tips from parking experts include parking your car at a distance and walking to the store and targeting areas near less popular stores.
“What we’re really suggesting that people do is take the closest space that’s open to them. The very first one they see,” Casey Jones, former spokesperson for the International Parking Institute, told ABC News.