There is no one on Earth who wants to spend more time looking for parking. There is no way to enjoy the experience; nothing to be learned from circling city blocks in a desperate but futile search of a free space—in short, there is nothing good about the hunt for a parking space.
Or perhaps there wasn’t until the age of mobile. Although it still remains terrible for people who need spaces, it is at least presenting an opportunity for innovation between technology providers and auto-makers. British start-up JustPay has crafted an app to handle the parking quest.
“Parking is one of these unsolved problems of daily life,” said Robin Klein of Index Ventures, the European venture capital group that counts itself amount JustPark’s backers, reports The Financial Times. Index in the past invested in Skype and Candy Crush-maker King Digital Entertainment.
JustPay’s other big early investor is BMW—which helped develop the app and currently features it in its Mini line and plans to introduce it across every vehicle the company sells by the end of the year.
The premise of the app is fairly simple—users install the app in their phone and then place it in their car, at which point the JustPay appears on the automobile’s dashboard. Users can then use the app to locate a parking space and purchase it. After the payment is made, they are then guided through GPS navigation to their space.
Automakers like BMW have a strong incentive to pursue a future where users tap in their proprietary technology platforms for the “connected” car—as opportunities for revenue channels developed post-sale abound. However, carmakers must compete for space on their own dashboards from established tech players like Apple and Google that also have a vested interest in the future of the smart-cart.
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For example, even users that don’t have a BMW product like a Mini can still download and use JustPay, provided they have an iPhone.
So far, the Engish parking start-up reports 500,000 users for its service—which earns revenue through taking a small cut of the parking fee paid to spot owners.
In an interesting and novel twist, JustPay allows private homeowners to rent out space in their driveways, much the way businesses rent out spaces in their parking lots during low traffic times.
