Uberization of Parking Industry

IoT is making parking search more predictive and convenient for motorists, says Sarang Mokashi, Co-founder Director, TechProm IOT

In smart cities, the parking industry is expected to flourish with newer business models, process innovation, IOT and advanced data analytics. With the arrival of new ecosystem players and participants, it is anticipated that the early positive disruption of this market is beginning to happen with uberization of parking- creating highly responsive and real-time ecosystem connecting those who are interested in lending parking spaces with those who are searching for one.

It is a familiar sight of a road full of cars trying to find a parking space, worsening traffic by slowing down other vehicles. At the same time, city governments are always progressive to look for effective on-street parking solutions to solve the problem of parking in actual.

Many countries have now validated the proof-of-concept of on-street parking guidance systems that include in-ground vehicle detection sensors
installed at parking spaces. Then the real-time data of parking lot occupancy is relayed to LED signage via IoT gateways to display guidance information to motorists to find nearby available parking slot.

The on-street parking guidance system based on live occupancy data of nearby parking lots will significantly impact on reducing the searching time (the time taken by motorists to find parking space for their car), and thereby traffic congestion.

What is that which is making roadside parking spaces more discoverable?
The Internet of Things has begun to permeate nearly every aspect of our daily live. The smart cities have got maximum advantage of IoT’s capability
to gather important data (like parking lot occupancy) from internet connected smart devices. The smart parking solutions integrating IoT devices like parking lot occupancy sensors and gateway internet access
points can generate real-time data of each individual parking bay whether it is vacant or occupied. This information gathered from multiple parking lots can be accessed via parking mobile apps or overhead digital displays.

TechProm IOT is an Ahmedabad based startup, with a mission to reduce traffic congestion caused by motorists circling in search of parking, and provide citizens with hassle-free parking experience. “Our aim is to facilitate parking solution providers with cost effective, robust IoT devices that can generate parking data insights for reducing traffic congestion due to motorists in search of parking places, “ says Mokashi. The company is into design, development and manufacturing of smart parking sensor equipment, IoT gateways and IoT platform for facilitating realtime data on city-wide parking lot occupancy, on-street parking guidance & car parking space reservation.

“The IOT hardware product line is for both on-street and off-street parking solutions including highly engineered products. Latest IoT
technologies like LoRa, and Bluetooth