Only drivers know the paint of circling in search of a parking spot for their vehicles. It not only adds to their mental frustration but also increases their unncessary fuel expenses.
Smart parking is something that has emerged as the best solution for various challenges faced by drivers when it comes to finding a parking space for their vehicles. Parking a vehicle in a dense city is not only a stressful activity but also drains away so much money from our pockets. Smart parking systems puts an end to these issues and brings more benefits as it reduces traffic congestion, saves time and energy, optimises space use, and checks illegal parking activities.
How smart parking systems does it all so smoothly isn’t that difficult to understand as it uses sensors, cameras and mobile applications. The coherence of all these three important components of a smart parking system is what protects us from the hectic traffic issues. IOT that stands for Internet of Things, AI and real time data work together to help vehicle owners.
It is important for someone who wants to start a smart parking business to understand how smart parking works? Starting a business without understanding the needs of customers is like constructing a 40-story building on a paper foundation— which you know is unstable, and bound to collapse. Entrepreneurs must understand customer pain points, technology, and operational activities because they help in creating something that adds value to the customers.
What makes a smart parking system work is a combination of sensors, cameras, and a software that work together to help drivers detect a vacancy parking spot in the area where they are supposed to park their vehicles. Sensors are installed in parking spaces in such a way that it detects whether there is a vacant or an occupied parking spot and these sensors are connected to a central system using IOT, data processing system makes sure to find the availability of parking space, and the real time information is shared with customers via a software or a mobile application. The apps even collects payment from customers and eventually showing the customers where they could park their vehicles.
Our efforts to explain the working mechanism of a smart parking system above shall also give you a clue where you will be investing your money when you plan to launch a smart parking business in your locality. Let’s say, you wanted to start with a small scale parking(20-50 spaces), your investment could range from $20k-$100k. Let’s break your total investment structure for a small scale parking system. Sensors cost will range from $50-$500. LED screens and display boards are a bit expensive that would cost you $1000-$5000 per item. Cameras for detecting automatic number plates could be around $500-$3000 for each camera. Cloud software will go for $10k, mobile application for $5k, and ioT infrastructure for $2000 or even more. There will be maintenance costs, staffing and energy consumption costs as well.
Entrepreneurs must also define their business model for their smart parking project and the most important things they should understand is revenue channels. They can earn using a parking fee service for a hourly or daily basis, generate revenue from display advertisements. Their target key customers may be either B2B ones or B2C. B2B customer segment is constituted by malls, commercial offices and even municipalities while B2C customers they can serve are individuals who own cars owners.
