ParkMate: Changing How India Parks it’s Cars

Where did the idea of ParkMate emanate?

Back in 2016 when I was about to get married, I used to travel all across the Delhi-NCR for shopping and other arrangements. Every time, when I used to reach a destination I had to wait almost 20-25 minutes either to find a car parking or else, I used to drop my parents at the destination and say “aap chalo mai gaadi laga kar aata hu.” It was a very big hassle for me. We searched for applications offering a solution to the parking problem. We found some apps which were offering online booking of parking spaces in some limited areas but even after booking a spot online, I had to travel to the parking spaces which in most cases were 500 m-1 KM away. That’s where this idea came to my mind. We started working on this idea back in 2020 and began our research on how the parking industry operates. What are the problems the general public faces and what could be the solution to those problems.

What were the efforts and data analysis carried out to develop the APP?

We did an extensive study spanning over 17 months including an on ground survey across cluster markets of New Delhi. After our research and survey we found that the most convenient way of parking for people is Valet parking. But this facility was available in either some hotels or selected high end restaurants. Why couldn’t this facility be extended all across the city? And that is what we, at ParkMate, are doing. We will provide on demand hyperlocal Valet services to all, across Delhi-NCR. Before going ahead with the idea we had to firstly identify the key choke points where parking congestion begins and what are the hot spots where our services could be best tested. We validated our idea without an app in one of the prime locations of Delhi and then decided to go ahead with our product design. We also identified what type of UI/UX would be best suited for a person driving a car where he/she would not need to focus much on the screw and the driver would be able to make a booking by one or by two taps. That is how we started building our application.

How have the early days of the App been ? Any challenges faced ?

It is an industrious and challenging task to introduce a new service to the people. We are a new brand, a new service and we are doing our best to build and earn trust among new users. However, people of Delhi-NCR have been very kind to us and have welcomed our services with open hands. We did have some challenges to meet before we even began our operations. First challenge was to hire so many drivers with good knowledge of the local markets. To cater for drivers, we strictly hired only those people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. We have also reached out to parking contractors and are setting up an arrangement which would enable them to more efficiently utilize their manpower and parking spaces. Next challenge was to integrate our mapping technology in our valet application module. The mapping tech was mandatory to guide our valets to the nearest available parking. We had to carry out extensive mapping of such locations. At ParkMate, we are a team of 7 core members and a fleet of our parking buddies.