Apparatus and method for determining parking information

1. A method of determining parking information, comprising:

receiving, at a server, journey information from a plurality of navigation devices, the journey information indicating one or more journeys made by each navigation device and timing information thereof; and

determining, by the server based upon the journey information, parking information indicating a geographical location of one or more parking areas being areas which the server determines, from said journey information, are more likely to be areas in which vehicles park;

wherein said parking information also includes, for said one or more parking areas a Parking Availability Profile (PAP), also determined by said server from said journey information, said PAP comprising an indication of a number of vehicles leaving each parking area per unit time during the plurality of time periods.

2. The method of claim 1 , comprising determining, for one or more of the parking areas, a number of parking places in each parking area.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determination of the geographical location of the one or more parking areas is based upon the journey information indicating that a number of vehicles have parked in each parking area during a time period.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determination of the parking availability profile is based upon a fraction of vehicles including navigation devices operable to store the journey information and a number of navigation devices operable to determine the journey information present in each parking area during the plurality of time periods.

5. The method of claim 1 comprising transmitting, from the server to a navigation device, the parking availability profile.

6. A server computer for determining parking information, comprising:

a data communications device to receive journey information from navigation devices, the journey information indicating one or more journeys made by each navigation device and timing information thereof; and

a parking availability profile (PAP) module to be executed on the server, wherein the PAP module is arranged to determine from the journey information, when executed, parking information indicating a geographical location of one or more parking areas and an indication of a number of vehicles leaving each parking area per unit time during the plurality of time periods.

7. The server computer of claim 6 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to provide tariff information for the one or more parking areas.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the PAP comprises an estimate of parking availability in one or more time periods for a respective parking area.

9. The server computer of claim 6 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to form one or more parking locations from clusters, the clusters comprising areas identifying a predetermined number of parking locations per unit area in a predetermined time period.

10. The server computer of claim 6 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to determine, for one or more of the parking areas, a number of parking places in each parking area.

11. The server computer of claim 6 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to determine the geographical location of the one or more parking areas according to the journey information indicating that a number of vehicles have parked in each parking area during a time period.

12. The server computer of claim 6 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to determine, for one or more parking areas, a parking availability profile indicating a number or parking places available in each parking area during a plurality of time periods.

13. The server computer of claim 12 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to determine the parking availability profile based, at least in part, upon a fraction of vehicles having navigation devices operable to store the journey information and a number of navigation devices operable to determine the journey information present in each parking area during the plurality of time periods.

14. The server computer of claim 12 , wherein the PAP module is arranged to transmit one or more parking availability profiles to a navigation device in response to a request received from the navigation device via the data communication device.

15. The server computer of claim 14 , wherein the request includes information identifying a current location of the navigation device and the PAP module is arranged to select the one or more parking availability profiles to be transmitted to the navigation device according to the location information.