We’ve all been there: you park your car somewhere, but forget to buy a parking ticket, stop the parking session by sending a text message, or even worse, you pay at the meter, but you’re five minutes late and see that you have been fined. These are frustrations shared by all motorists, especially those such as technicians, homecare nurses and sales people who use their cars on a daily basis and have to follow the parking rules on every client visit. This often leads to huge operating costs.
The Belgian company Parkd has come up with a solution for this problem, as it has developed an innovative and patented parking solution which uses connected car data to automatically detect when a car is parked in a paying zone, and when it leaves again. Parking costs are calculated fully automatically, and are accurate down to the minute. This solution makes parking fines a thing of the past, helps employees to save time and cuts down on red tape for companies. That is why this Belgian invention is increasingly popular, both in Belgium and abroad. Parkd now covers more than 150 cities in Belgium and the Netherlands and has set its sights on the rest of Europe.
Parkd, a simple idea that is causing quite a stir, at home and abroad.
Belgian entrepreneurs Olivier de Clercq and Nelson Dheedene came up with the idea of creating a no-stress parking solution.
“The idea for Parkd came about very naturally, primarily through Nelson and myself being annoyed by the current system. If you often find yourself in city centres, you know that getting a parking fine is inevitable. The connected car market is booming, but there are few solutions that provide real added value. Having your car beep its horn remotely or turning on the heating is a nice trick, but it doesn’t have much of an impact. The added value of Parkd is significant, however. Parkd users say they no longer want to return to the old form of paying for parking, and fleet managers see a reduction in parking costs from day one. An average fleet of 60 cars saves about 6000 euros per year with Parkd. That’s quite something, isn’t it?” – Olivier de Clercq, CEO and co-founder of Parkd.
In just three years, Olivier and Nelson have managed to convince a lot of companies in Belgium and the Netherlands of the benefits of Parkd. Technicians and engineers already see the advantages. Rentokil, Digipolis, the City of Ghent and Record Automatic Doors are just a few of their customers who each save thousands of euros every year.
The advent of CCTV enforcement vehicles equipped with ANPR, in both Belgium and abroad, has greatly increased the risk of a parking fine. So not paying for parking is no longer an option, but Parkd automatically ensures that you only pay for the minutes your car is parked.
For the ambitious entrepreneurs behind Park, it doesn’t stop there, however.
European ambitions: after the track-and-trace market, Parkd is now also setting its sights on rental cars, leasing companies and car manufacturers.
Until recently, the company mainly focused its efforts on the track-and-trace sector. It has partnerships with global players such as Webfleet Solutions, Verizon Connect and Fleet Complete as well as strong local players including RAM, MyFMS & Suivo. Companies that equip their cars with one of these track-and-trace systems can register online on the Parkd website in just a few minutes and get started immediately.
But the market still has a lot of potential. In Europe alone, there are still at least 81 million connected cars that could work with Parkd. In order to expand its market reach, Parkd is now also targeting three other sectors: car rental companies, leasing companies and car manufacturers.
“In 2020, we will start pilot projects with one of the largest leasing companies and a leading car rental company in Europe. For the leasing company, Parkd ensures that there are no unnecessary parking costs and fines for connected cars. Rental cars are also an interesting market, as tourists often do not know how to pay for parking abroad. Here, too, we can take away the parking headaches of both the end users and the companies. Imagine renting a car in Barcelona, parking it in legal spots all over the city and settling up the parking costs when you return the key. It’s clear that there are still a lot of markets to conquer. We believe that the pilots will open doors in 2020, both to other markets and to additional investors.” – Nelson Dheedene, co-founder of Parkd.