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Good luck. Photo credit: GPS.

You’re a giant soccer fan. Lucky for you, you land tickets to your favorite team playing nearby. You pile all of your friends into your car and drive a sizable amount of time to the stadium. You get there and see that traffic is a mess and parking is going to be near impossible.

Good thing you’ve already paid US$1.79 to book a spot for four hours – about the length of the game. You have to wait in line to pull into the spot, but once you’re in, you can go watch the match. If things end up taking a little longer, you can pay an extra US$0.37 per hour.

That’s the experiment Pin ‘N’ Park, an Uber for parking spaces, is running right now as the Indian Super League plays in Kochi.

Parking problems

(From left) Sreejith and Amith, co-founders of Pin ‘N’ Park. Photo credit: Pin ‘N’ Park.

Kochi-based Pin ‘N’ Park was founded by Amith Sasi and Sreejith Kumar.

Amith got the idea in March last year after he observed that his father-in-law had to drive far out of the city to find a parking spot and catch a rickshaw the rest of the way in order to commute to work.

Both founders were working other jobs at the time but researched parking in India and around the world on the side. In May, they ran a pilot and by July 2016, they’d iterated enough to feel confident about their product. That’s when they got funded by Federal Bank Launchpad and quit their jobs.

Amith and Sreejith got to know each other in their undergrad years, around 2000. “To be frank, since those days, we were looking for different ideas to implement,” he says. They worked on a few small software projects, but didn’t think anything would be a good market fit until Pin ‘N’ Park came along.

Other startups pushing back against the parking struggle in India include Plonk for Bangalore, PParkE, and on-demand valet service Constapark.

Ready for launch

Kochi: Even when it’s not crowded, it’s difficult to spot a parking spot. Photo credit: Aleksandr Zykov.

Pin ‘N’ Park will initially be available as a web app. Sreejith says that the Android and iOS versions are coming later. Together, they take me through the booking process – I create a profile and verify it using my email and phone number. Then, I have the option of uploading my vehicle details – the make, model, and my license plate number. That way, people know the size of parking spot I need.

Once I fill out where I need to go, the app finds me a nearby parking spot that fits my car. At the time of demonstration, prices varied. That’s now been updated so spots go for a standard US$0.15 per hour. When I go to park, an Internet of Things (IoT) sensor at the entrance of the parking lot keeps track of when my car enters and exits. It will cost just south of US$60.

“In the future, we are planning to have sensors at each parking space, which will help people get the exact location of the parking and will help in internal navigation within the multi-level parking spaces,” says Amith.

On the other hand, if I have a spare parking spot lying around, I can upload the spot onto the app and rent it out to make some extra cash – between 60 and 80 percent of the total revenue. Trained staff will make sure the spot is suitable (no one wants to park in a ditch).

Drivers using the app can pay via credit, debit, or e-wallet. They can also prepay through the web app. For large events like the Indian Super League games, a point of service machine is provided for those who want to use cash. However, Sreejith explains that the ideal situation is one in which people are paying through their bank accounts. The company will soon enable a net-banking facility as well.

Pin ‘N’ Park officially launches on December 1.

Converted from Indian rupees. US$1 = INR 66.85

This post An Uber for parking spots steps in so soccer fans can enjoy their game appeared first on Tech in Asia.

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