Smart Parking Management System

Project Overview

This is a server-side project built with ASP.NET Core 8, designed to manage a smart parking lot.
The system allows managing parking lots, parking spots, vehicles, and calculating payments dynamically based on the duration of the parking.

Note: This project primarily focuses on Server-side Architecture (N-Tier) and Business Logic. The frontend was developed for demonstration purposes only to showcase the API's capabilities.

---

Project Description

The system simulates a real-world parking lot.
When a car enters, it is registered in the system and automatically assigned the first available parking spot.
When it exits, the system calculates the payment according to the time spent and frees the spot.

The system includes three main entities:

• Parking – represents the parking lot
• Spot – represents an individual parking spot
• Car – represents the registered vehicle

---

Database Structure

1. Parking

Column	Description
Id (PK)	Unique identifier for the parking lot
Name	Parking lot name
Location	Address or location
Total_spots	Total number of parking spots
Available_spots	Number of currently available spots
Price_per_hour	Parking fee per hour

2. Spot

Column	Description
Id (PK)	Unique identifier for the spot
ParkingId (FK)	Foreign key referencing Parking
Spot_number	Parking spot number
Is_occupied	Indicates whether the spot is occupied
CarId (FK)	Foreign key referencing Car (nullable)

3. Car

Column	Description
Id (PK)	Unique identifier for the car
License_num	Car license number
Owner_name	Full name of the car owner
Entry_time	Time of entry
Exit_time	Time of exit
Total_payment	Total payment for the parking session

---

Main API Endpoints (RESTful)

Method	Route	Description
GET	/api/Parkings	Get all parking lots
POST	/api/Parkings	Add a new parking lot (Requires JWT Auth)
GET	/api/Spots	Retrieve all parking spots
POST	/api/Cars	Register a car entry and assign a spot
DELETE	/api/Cars/{id}	Register a car exit, calculate payment, and free the spot (Requires JWT Auth)
POST	/api/Auth/login	Authenticate admin and generate JWT Token

---

Business Logic

• Car Entry: The system validates parking availability, finds the first available spot, marks it as occupied, stores the car’s entry time, and decrements available spots.
• Car Exit: The system calculates the total time spent (rounding up to the nearest hour), computes the payment according to the specific parking's hourly rate, and frees the parking spot.

---

Technologies & Architecture

• Backend: ASP.NET Core 8.0, C#
• Architecture: N-Tier Architecture, Dependency Injection (DI)
• Database: SQL Server, Entity Framework Core (Code-First)
• Security: JWT Authentication
• Mapping: AutoMapper, DTOs
• Documentation: Swagger UI

---

Developed By

• Hadas Homri
• Sara Levin

---

Installation & Setup

Follow these steps to clone the repository and run the project locally.

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/saralev111/SmartParking.git
cd SmartParking

2. Run the Backend (.NET Core)

Navigate to the backend directory, install dependencies, and apply migrations:

dotnet restore
dotnet ef database update
dotnet run

3. Run the Frontend (React / Bun)

Open a new terminal window and run:

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

---

Known Issues & Future Improvements

Concurrency Handling in Spot Allocation:
Currently, under extreme high load, a race condition might occur if two requests attempt to book the exact same parking spot at the exact same millisecond.

Planned Fix:
Implement Optimistic Concurrency using Entity Framework Core (e.g., adding a [Timestamp] token to the Spot entity). This will catch a DbUpdateConcurrencyException and ensure robust data integrity during parallel requests.