Imagine this: Rahul is having a fight with his girlfriend. She’s so angry she will not calm down. The easy way to take care of this is to take her to dinner at that fancy restaurant in Indira Nagar, Bangalore. So Rahul went ahead and made reservations for D-day.
D-day came, Rahul and his girlfriend slightly mollified that at least the guy was doing something to make amends, made their way to Indira Nagar. Rahul is driving his way to what should be a lovely evening. His bubble bursts when he can’t find a parking spot in a 5 km radius. All the poor guy’s hard work is undone because he couldn’t find a parking spot.
“Imagine if Rahul had just used
ParkingRhino, his evening would have been so much better, don’t you think?” says the founders of ParkingRhino, Tridib Konwar and Mriganka Deka.
ParkingRhino, is a Google Launchpad-selected venture launched to digitize the parking industry. Standing tall amidst several existing solutions that has seen a fall out due to their inflexibility has made ParkingRhino a registered hit.
The specifications, louder than its name, has immortalized ParkingRhino since its launch in August 2015. Especially in the minds of those like Rahul’s mind. The app showcases features like nearby parking spots categorized as free, paid and valet parking across the city. Included are details like hourly pricing, the optimal route to the parking destination, security of parking areas as well as availability of car wash facilities.
Other features like weekend updates of new concerts around, nearby bank and ATMs and weekend outdoor events, earns the app more credibility. Thus, Rahul’s problems are solved the digital way further offering him the basic freedom to plan his errands and meetings accordingly.
Verified Parking SpotsParkingRhino aims to resolve the urban Indian’s most common problems by giving a list of verified parking spots. Available parking spots are verified through a rating based algorithm taking into consideration multiple factors. If the average score of any parking space falls below a certain threshold, it’s ‘crushed’ during the display of a parking listing.
The B2B value addition The ParkingRhino platform offers parking contractors and governments, a B2B point-of-sale (POS) management solution and can digitize any sort of unorganized parking space in less than 120 seconds. Contractors can manage parking spaces remotely with auditing tools, revenue analytics and smart alerts with real-time information.
"The Indian government will need macro level data about parking and traffic to the smart city projects a success. ParkingRhino has the capability to provide such macro data for smart cities," says the founders. They have already digitized over 40 locations in Bangalore.
ParkingRhino is at present in discussion with several state government and city municipal corporations to accelerate smart parking digitization and accomplish the mission to change urban mobility in India.
The parking industry is worth billionsAccording to the founders of ParkingRhino, the smart parking industry is estimated at 100 billion dollars. ParkingRhino hit operational break even last November 2016 and now says they are making money through its B2B solutions such as the parking management solution.
Other revenue streams include partnering with geo-targeted hyperlocal businesses for advertisements.
BW Reporters
Regina is a reporter for BW Businessworld. In her previous assignments, she has worked with Independent television Network as a news anchor and reporter in Sri Lanka
