Alleviating parking woes with Smart Parking solutions

Parking is a huge problem in India, especially in metro cities. No matter where you are heading to, be it your office, shopping, or any downtown corner, Indian motorists face a lot of problems for finding a legal parking spot. As per the IBM parking research report, an urban person wastes about 20 minutes in parking. Along with the time lost,  there is also a lot of wastage of fuel and peace of mind in search of parking. If we multiply this problem to the millions of people who face them everyday, the overall negative impact is staggering.

What causes these parking woes? Can they be helped? Is there any hope for a better parking solution? These are some of the many questions haunting every person stuck in a jam. Thankfully there are several experts out there who are pioneering and changing the whole parking experience using technologies that are categorised as Smart Parking.

What is Smart Parking?

In a nutshell, smart parking is a parking technology ecosystem that automates the various operations involved in parking for all the stakeholders involved. There is a lot of modern technology combined like IoT, mobile apps, cloud softwares, and data analytics. It reduces revenue leakage and brings efficiency, centralised on-the-fly control, and vigilance. Smart parking apps can inform a driver for a parking space about location, availability, pricing, other terms, etc. This system can also help with automated ticket generation and payment collection. Motorists with a daily commute to certain places can book parking slots and pay for them in advance using smart parking applications.

Smart parking helps drivers explore every possible parking option, which enhances their arrival experience. Besides improving parking experiences and curbing emissions, smart parking optimizes facility usage and introduces new revenue streams for lot owners.

Smart Parking Developments and Urban Policies in India

India has its fair share of crowded cities where parking problems are manyfold. Take Bengaluru for example – a city once considered as laid back is already facing severe traffic and parking issues. To counter this, the state government is initiating a smart parking system that enables drivers to find the relevant parking slot using a smartphone app.

But, having a mobile parking  app for citizens alone is not enough as digitising the supply side and ground level operations is what makes smart parking possible. The authorities are working on this by improving parking infrastructure on several street parking and off-street lots. All the parking vacancy information collected from these stretches will go to a central server, which will process this information and make it available for users on apps and websites. Furthermore, authorities are installing CCTV cameras to help municipal officials check live parking status and remote management if required.

Let us now shift focus to the capital city of New Delhi with its serious parking woes. The New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has proposed a policy that calls for the appointment of an area wise grant for about seven years. The role for their assigned perimeter will be to upgrade and retrofit all parking spaces with cameras and sensors to enable smart parking. Along with a few private players, the govt. aims to convert a chunk of Delhi's parking lots into smart parking ecosystems. Authorities estimate this to be done on a public-private partnership basis (PPP). Given the proposed sensor-based parking management system, the city's residents can receive information on vacant bays within a parking lot and other available parking spaces, usage policy, prices, route map, and much more on their smartphones in real-time.

The smart parking momentum is building and rolling over to non-metro cities also. Relevant authorities of cities like Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Pune, Nagpur, Kochi, etc and are also implementing a similar smart parking ecosystem to ensure optimal parking management.

Given the amount of saved time, energy, and cost to the environment, the smart cities mission and proposal implies smart parking applications are mandatory. Simply put, no smart city can come to fruition without a legit smart parking ecosystem in place.

Compelling Benefits

It should come as no surprise that relevant government authorities, city planners, urbanists, and automotive companies are pushing for smart parking innovations in India. After all, intelligent parking systems benefit all stakeholders. And most importantly, society collectively will be able to save a lot of time, fuel, and curb emissions. The technology with promises of hassle free parking in the future is here and it’s high time our urban development plans adopt them.

The article is authored by Chirag Jain, Founder & CEO, Get My Parking