at san francisco based start up streetline, zia yusef wants to change that. >>yusuf: so it all starts with the sensors that we put into the ground so this is an example of one of them. as you can see it's very strong. inside the sensor is a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment, you've got batteries you've got an magnetometer, you've got an antenna, a radio and what this sensor does is that it detects the presence of a car. >>reporter: so the sensor knows if a car is parked in a particular spot. specially adapted parking meters can also track payments. >>yusuf: that's our sensors inside an old coin operated meter but by doing this, this becomes a wireless device in itself so when you put a quarter in here we will know. >>reporter: the sensors are already in place in cities such as hollywood where subscribers to a "parker" app get real time information about available parking spaces. >>yusuf: so this is a block that has 4+ and you can go in there and you can see the pricing information, the availability and so on. >>reporter: places that install sensors are