Senegal’s Sensible-Parking Answer for Africa

Congestion and air pollution have plagued African cities in a means that’s dangerous each to economics and the local weather. An built-in and environment friendly transport system is required if the continent is to advance. In Nairobi, a survey confirmed that the common time spent looking for a parking spot was 32 minutes.

The streets of Dakar, Senegal aren’t any exception. Parking isn’t solely arduous to seek out however the residents of the cosmopolitan metropolis resort to parking on sidewalks that are dangerous. After transferring to Senegal from the US, CEO Gabriela Marin had a lightbulb second after her son virtually received hit by a automobile parked on the sidewalk. The aerospace engineer determined to enterprise into the enterprise of making further parking tons to alleviate sidewalks by means of licensed empty tons in Dakar.

“Operating a bodily car parking zone was arduous then we anticipated,” says Gabi. “We additionally rapidly realized that there was no parking operator software program geared for rising markets like Senegal.”

The staff began by creating an operation/monitoring device and with that, they have been capable of virtually double their income as a result of they have been capable of perceive how a lot site visitors they have been having in a single car parking zone. At present, Parcsmart is constructing software program that not solely helps drivers discover and reserve a parking area utilizing their smartphones earlier than they attain their vacation spot but additionally permits parking operators to handle their tons higher.

Parcsmart software program customers are multi-faceted and it’s not solely for-profit operators who use the product. Non-public parking operators use the software program to handle tons at their resorts and personal communities. Avenue parkers within the casual markets use it to inform customers of parking areas accessible on their sidewalks and drivers additionally use the app to order parking earlier than they arrive or as soon as they’re at their location.

Parcsmart has encountered just a few challenges deploying its product and determining the context through which they function. One key realization was that their customers wouldn’t be snug going on the web and navigating to a web site and typically the consumer might not even be capable of learn.

“We received the consumer interface proper after some trial and error and we created a characteristic the place we will take photographs of the tag of a car and the algorithm will decrypt the tag by means of laptop imaginative and prescient and report it routinely,” says CTO Lamine Ba. “We additionally lowered the variety of buttons that you need to click on by means of in an effort to report a car.”

The imaginative and prescient is to democratize parking and have individuals utilizing Parcsmart globally in cities that want it essentially the most. Understanding the market and together with a number of gamers of their worth chain is serving Parcsmart nicely and it’s apparent that their influence can be phenomenal.

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