With the traffic comes the issue of parking. This has prevented many owners in metro areas from getting their cars out or from suffering every day during rush hour. In other words, this becomes a market opportunity that can be scaled up with the help of technology.
Park +, based in Delhi, aims to make parking easier with the use of deep technology. “Today, there are several parking spaces available in a variety of cities. These locations are difficult to come by. “We collaborate with space owners to allow our users to discover and book them in advance,” says Amit Lakhotia, founder and CEO of Park+. “The spots are supervised by humans, and the owners can use them safely for the time they have reserved.”
Park + has vigorously accumulated parking spaces in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore, and currently has approximately 75,000 spots for cars and two-wheelers. “We also have access control as a use case. For our clients, we have Park+ names. If they choose to park in corporate buildings or residential societies, they may simply scan the tags and go to their designated spot,” Lakhotia explains. The patented algorithm manages parking spots in various locations, as well as user bookings, challan generation, and access control. “We have so far raised $11 million to develop this in-house,” says Lakhotia. There are ground sensors in certain areas that have real-time parking status.
“The majority of our aggregation is supervised by humans. It will take some time for ground sensors to become common,” adds Lakhotia, referring to the growing role of technology in urban traffic and parking management. The business earns a 10-15% margin on each booking and charges Rs 60-Rs 100 per hour on average, depending on the venue. The startup intends to gradually implement variable pricing based on parking spot availability across several locations.
“To date, we have not collaborated with companies, smart cities, or governments. The difficulty is in educating the public before doing so. “There are many choices for commuting, and whichever one they choose, parking would be a challenge for them,” Lakhotia says of business challenges. Park+ has been in service since October of last year. “For us, traffic and parking demand have been increasing since October of last year. Otherwise, starting operations during lockdown would have been difficult. It was also the right time to launch contactless online booking, as well as wireless parking payments.”
Follow and connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter
