Street parking community application and method

A system for informing users of mobile communications devices about available on-street parking spaces for vehicles, the system comprising:

• a plurality of mobile communications devices, each of which includes
• a positioning system that determines a position of the mobile communications device and
• a parking application that allows a user of one of the plurality of mobile communications devices to send a notification message that the user is making a parking space available and the location thereof
• and that allows the user to receive notifications about on-street parking spaces made available by users of others of the plurality of mobile communications devices and the respective locations thereof.

A method of facilitating finding on-street parking comprising:

• with an application executed on a server connected to a data network, receiving notification messages from users of mobile communications devices, wherein each notification message indicates that a user of the mobile communications device has operated a vehicle to vacate an on-street parking space and identifies a location of the on-street parking space;
• with the application executed on the server, receiving inquiry messages from users of mobile communications devices, wherein each inquiry message indicates that a user of the respective mobile communications device is seeking an on-street parking space in a desired area;
• with the application executed on the server, matching desired areas from inquiry messages with locations of vacated on-street parking spaces identified in notification messages;
• and
• with the application executed on the server, transmitting response messages to the inquiry messages, wherein each of said response messages identifies the location of one or more of the vacated on-street parking spaces in the desired area identified in the corresponding inquiry message.