In one of North America’s largest cities, managing on-street parking has traditionally been a mammoth task, relying on manual processes and limited visibility. The Toronto Parking Authority (TPA), North America’s largest municipally-owned parking operator with over 60,000 parking spaces, has chosen a better option, one that no city has really ever done before.

“We started with a simple need — how could we improve our operations, and in turn, better serve our community and our customers,” Faiyaz Patel, Director Parking Development at the TPA, said. “We understood that we needed to gain real-time visibility into our street-level assets with the help of technology and it quickly became clear that digitisation of our parking assets was the answer.”

The TPA needed a solution that could not only map existing assets but also provide ongoing, accurate data about the changing urban landscape—construction zones, temporary closures, and the real-time status of parking infrastructure.

The partnership between TPA and SenSen began with a modest proof-of-concept aimed at mapping on-street parking assets. SenSen deployed its AI-powered camera technology to capture and analyse Toronto’s streets, delivering unprecedented visibility into the parking ecosystem.

What started as an inventory mapping exercise grew into a comprehensive curb management solution. The technology identifies everything from parking metres and signage to available spaces, providing TPA with critical data previously unavailable at scale.

With digital mapping in place, TPA gained confidence in the street-level data it was generating, allowing it to make informed decisions about resource allocation and space management.

One significant application involved optimising parking meter placement. By analysing exactly how many parking stalls existed between metres, TPA could make data-driven decisions about meter distribution, improving the customer experience while maintaining operational efficiency.

The SenSen system also began detecting temporary street closures due to construction, filming permits, or special events — occurrences that impact parking availability but were previously difficult to track systematically.

“I view SenSen as my eyes on the street that captures accurate, on scale information that we need to better run our business,” Patel said. “We now have metrics and KPIs behind what is actually happening on our streets with a very high level of accuracy, which gives us the ability to manage our assets and respond proactively to changing conditions. The partnership has now expanded across our portfolio.”

The partnership uncovered new applications beyond basic parking management. SenSen’s cameras can now identify when TPA’s EV charging infrastructure is physically damaged, enabling rapid response and maintenance.

This expanded capability has led TPA to integrate SenSen’s technology with other business partners, creating an ecosystem of smart city solutions built on reliable curb data.

At its core, the TPA-SenSen partnership aims to provide more accurate, real-time information to people navigating Toronto.

The partnership represents a fundamental shift in the approach to urban mobility management. “This isn’t the old TPA where we used to use papers and maps,” Patel said. “We’re actually leading edge and setting the industry standard.”

As North America’s largest municipal parking operator and Canada’s largest municipal owner of EV chargers, TPA is leveraging SenSen’s technology to pioneer innovative approaches to curb management and achieve their mission  – to re-imagine how Toronto moves by creating a seamless mobility experience that delivers choice, ease, and speed.

It demonstrates that even the most established urban infrastructure can be reimagined through smart technology.