Doing the smart thing . . . pre-booking your parking bay using the new ParkAide app.
By Vish B
HANDS up who among us has not wasted precious time looking for a place to park our cars?
It borders on the ridiculous that we see it as normal to waste time (and petrol, regardless of how much cheaper RON97 is these days) circling car parks on a daily basis looking for a vacant bay.
This happens everywhere; office buildings, shopping centres, even hospitals where you would think it should be understood that time is of the essence.
If it was a movie you were planning on going for, for which by the way there are apps galore to buy tickets in advance and even choose seats, your entire evening of relaxation and unwinding could very well be undone if just parking your car made you late for the start.
If a meal appointment, or worse still, a work-related meeting was on the agenda, “I was looking for parking” sounds like the least creative excuse and about as believable as the Malaysian favourite, “I’m on the way”.
Clearly, there is room in the market for a solution to our parking woes, and with ParkAide the solution is as homegrown as our half-baked excuses and incorrigible road manners.
ParkAide Mobile (M) Sdn Bhd, in collaboration with Secure Parking Corporation Sdn Bhd, launched its ticketless smartphone parking application ParkAide today in Kuala Lumpur.
Chief technology officer for ParkAide, Jason Soong, was on hand to describe the motivation for his brainchild.
“ParkAide is not just a mobile application, it is an environmentally friendly parking solution employing the convenience and versatility of the smartphone to transform and enhance every driver’s parking experience.”
ParkAide aims to reduce time wasted in searching for vacant bays and then locating an autopay machine upon leaving, not to mention eliminate issues related to lost parking tickets.
ParkAide app designer Jason Soong.
The app finds and directs the user to the nearest available ParkAide affiliated car parks using Google or Apple maps.
On entry to the car park, the app user simply has to scan the QR code at the entry from the comfort of their car. The process is repeated upon exit and the app automatically deducts the parking charges from the driver’s personal available credit.
Accounts can be set up for multiple users if required, with parking charges being deducted from a common pool of available credit.
If a driver’s smartphone has run out of battery or cannot be used, they need only to type in their unique user ID into the ParkAide touchscreen. The built-in QR scanner can also be used to scan codes on pillars to show where your parking bay is.
Drivers can also pre-book a parking bay at car parks offering this service by paying a booking fee or arrange for valet parking through ParkAide.
Bays can be booked up to one hour prior to use and a parking attendant will be on location to direct the app user to the reserved parking bays.
“Staff will be given attendant pads, our Book-A-Bay and valet services will come through the pad as orders,” said Edward Poh, managing director of Secure Parking Corp.
On the issue of security, repeated shakes of a user’s smartphone activates an SOS feature that car park attendants will respond to.
“Attendants will be present around the clock for security; the attendant pad also shows SOS alerts. We will encourage the participating landlord to provide security guard numbers as well so that they notified immediately if there is an emergency. We believe most landlords will be willing to cooperate because the security of their building is a priority” Poh said.
On concerns about poor mobile reception in underground car parks, Poh said the company’s parking facilities will have Wi-Fi signals boosted.
“We have also spoken to mobile network providers, they are very encouraged by this program and they would like to participate by boosting their coverage within car parks.”
As far as car park operators are concerned, Poh believes the absence of drawbacks associated with autopay machines will instil boost confidence in the app.
“We are trying to replace autopay machines. They are troublesome because you have to top up the money to provide change and later collect it as well, not to mention banking it in. (With our system) the money is banked in electronically.”
Other functions of the app include providing information on any parking promotions and discounts offered by the car park operator, alongside value added services such as car washing and detailing and advertisements.
The app currently does not provide bay finding but simply displays the number of bays vacant in the car park.
“We are working on integrating bay-finding into the app itself”.