Tech Partners Promise Parking Ecosystem
Two automotive technology companies are setting up a “parking ecosystem” to help city motorists while reducing pollution and congestion through wasted travel time.
Mapping specialist HERE Technologies and teamed up with connected car and mobility company INRIX hoping to offer a parking solution that includes on-street and off-street parking availability, dynamic rates and indoor mapping. Their ecosystem claims it can navigate the driver to an available spot inside a parking garage, transition to a companion mobile app for continued guidance inside a building, such as an airport or shopping mall, then return the driver to their car with a find-my-car feature. EV and plug-in hybrid users can also be mapped to a parking spot with the appropriate charging capabilities.
The pair claim that by coupling the learned behaviors of from users of the Here Parking app, like price versus walking distance, with INRIX’s real-time data, analytics and coverage, the new data should provide global coverage and information while guiding drivers to on-street spaces with the highest probability of being available. This partnership hopes to generate on-street parking data in more than 1,100 cities in 65 countries and off-street parking data in more than 20,000 cities in 150 countries and explore ways to monetize traffic analytics data sets.
Bryan Mistele, president and CEO of INRIX, said: “The combined reach of our innovation, coverage and expertise will help drivers around the world find parking smarter and faster.”
Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE Technologies, added: “As we continue to build a robust end-to-end ecosystem of connected car solutions on the HERE platform, we see this as a natural first step towards a gateway for in-car commerce.”
— Paul Myles is a seasoned automotive journalist based in London. Follow him on Twitter @Paulmyles_
