Monday marked the start of a pilot parking program at the Glenmont Metro station in Montgomery County designed to tell drivers how many spots are open before they enter the lot.

The system bears a strong resemblance to — yet is slightly less advanced than — the Signal-Park system being used at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport which is scheduled to be implemented in Rockville’s new downtown parking garage this summer.

According to county spokeswoman Esther Bowring, the main difference is that with Signal-Park, motorists learn not only whether the lot is full, but also the locations of the vacant spots.

“When you build a brand-new garage, it’s easier to retrofit that lot with that level of technology,” she said. “But to do that in an already-open garage, you’d have to tear up the entire facility. ... This is a way of achieving the same goal of making parking easier but with minimal disruption.”

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The cost difference in the two products reflects the differences in sophistication.

Estimates for the end product in Rockville run just over $1 million, according to city leaders. For the upgrade to the 1,700-space Glenmont parking garage, the cost is $475,000 — with the county chipping in $75,000 and the rest coming from the Federal Transit Administration.

Bowring said the trial period will last two months, after which Metro officials will survey users about the degree to which the alert system aided their travel.

The way the system at Glenmont will work is that when the garage is full, message signs along Georgia Avenue and Norbeck Road will post that information.

By knowing the status of the garage early, the driver can then elect to drive to another parking facility nearby, cutting down on wasted time.

The anticipated side-effect is that usage of park-and-ride facilities will grow, Bowring said, “being that you can drop your car off and get a ride directly to the Metro station.”

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com