About this project

This repository collects parking vacancy data published by Monash University. The university exposes a public JSON file listing parking availability for every Monash carpark fitted with parking sensors, including all the major ones. That JSON is refreshed every two minutes and is available at a public URL, which the project uses as its data source. The repository centres on a single Python script, scraper.py, which reads that JSON and records the results in a CSV file named monash_all_parking_availabilities.csv. The script is intended to run automatically rather than by hand: a workflow file, scrape.yml, runs it through GitHub Actions, and the runs are triggered every six minutes by the external scheduling service cron-job.org. The author states that data accumulation began on 21 August 2026 and that the CSV is expected to keep growing for the foreseeable future, and that anyone may use the resulting data as they please, lawfully. The README is candid about the project's origins. It is the author's first GitHub project and was undertaken largely as a way to learn how GitHub works. Most of the scripts were written with the help of the Gemini assistant under the author's supervision, and the repository setup followed the assistant's instructions. The author notes that the data will eventually grow large: an update dated 29 August 2026 says file size limits are likely to be reached in about five months, and lists intended follow-up work. Those plans are to analyse all the data series; to restrict collection to the active series for carpark N1 (all permits) plus other blue- or red-permit carparks; to store the data in a wide format, on the reasoning that the data should be dense rather than sparse given how few series change within a year; and possibly to publish a GitHub webpage that shows, based on historical trends, whether a parking spot is predicted to be available an hour ahead, along with an interactive view of the CSV data, which may be split into monthly files. In its current state the project is a straightforward scheduled data collection pipeline: a hosted JSON endpoint as source, a Python fetch-and-append script, a GitHub Actions workflow for execution, and an external cron service for timing. The README does not describe authentication, parsing details, error handling, or any analysis tooling, and the future items listed are stated as intentions rather than implemented features.