PETALING JAYA: Parking apps have been around for some time, having been introduced in Europe and United States to help drivers find parking spots at airports or busy city streets through their smartphone. Names like Parker, SpotHero, ParkingPanda, ParkWhiz and AirportParkingReservations are notable examples.
Now Malaysia has its own version called ParkEasy, created by four young Malaysians.
ParkEasy app enables a user to scout for available bays remotely, get a bird’s eye view of the parking floor, use intelligent navigation to find the designated spot and not worry about where the vehicle is parked as the app will remember the location.
“For a small fee, the app protects your parking from others. If someone else gets into the parking bay ‘illegally’, it will activate an alarm,” said ParkEasy CEO Warren Chan.
“The operations team at the mall is also equipped with their own app. They will be able to head straight to the ‘illegal’ parking and clamp the car.”
Chan said the idea for the app was borne of frustration at the difficulty of getting a spot at busy shopping malls.
“I have booked movie tickets using mobile apps so I thought why can’t we book a parking spot too?” he said.
Chan and three friends – Eric Tan, who serves as chief technology officer, Winnie Mah, the engineering vice-president, and senior developer Yong Shung Jiu – then started working intensively on such an app in August last year.
To develop the app, the four raised RM90,000 and received a RM210,000 matching grant from the Government – a scheme that encourages discipline and motivation in the project by invested participants.
The innovation has also caught the attention of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Mah Siew Keong, who cited the app as an example of Malaysian innovation and creativity in his speech at the Innovating Malaysia Conference 2016 in Kuala Lumpur recently.
Visit parkeasy.my for more information.
