When choosing a mobile solution, you need to make an informed decision that ensures you choose the parking app that has the best potential in your city. It’s not rocket science, but it’s certainly something that you have to put your mind to in order to get it right once and for all.

By making a good thorough decision, you will avoid the unnecessary costs and hassle of changing providers later. Before settling on a provider, make sure you’re able to check each of the great parking app requirements below:

1. Do you have a crystal clear parking strategy?

There can be many different parking strategies: Some cities want to actively reduce the amount of cars in the city center, and encourage people to use public transport instead. Other cities want to be car-friendly, and make it as easy as possible for car drivers to visit the city. Ensure that you have settled on a parking strategy that works for you.

2. Is communication a priority?

A great parking strategy can make your city much more accessible and enjoyable, but a strategy alone is not good enough – you need to communicate your intentions to the car drivers. Communication deficit is one of the biggest pitfalls in parking. In order to truly benefit from the service, your online solution should be a state of the art communication tool for informing car drivers in real time about all matters necessary.

3. Is the user experience superb?

Be it parking guidance, parking payments or whatever else: when you introduce a new service to car drivers in your city, make sure that the new technology is easy to use. All service providers consider their services easy, but analyze the service yourself: how many buttons do I have to press in order to get my task done with the new tech? Cut the user experience into steps and choose the service with the fewest steps. Consumers will never accept a new solution if it’s harder to use than the previous one.

4. Does the service solve real problems?

The biggest problem in the parking industry is parking guidance. Many cities and parking companies introduce mobile payment solutions in order to make the payment process easier, when the real problem is actually finding ways to guide drivers and control traffic. Make sure your solution attacks a real larger scale problem and tackles is well.

5. Is it cost-effective?

New technology should introduce new ways for you to save money. If you are thinking about launching a parking app in your city, make sure you understand the cost structure. Ideally, the new service should be cheaper than the current system you have in place, both for you and the consumers.

Less than five times “yes”? Go back to the drawing board and find a solution that works for you. Contact us for more information!

Yes to all five? Congratulations, so far so good! Looks like you know what makes the framework for a good parking app. Now check out the app feature checklist for the “must” technical attributes.

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ParkMan is an efficient digital solution for parking management, and a parking app for drivers to find and pay for parking. Read how ParkMan can help you!

Main photo by “Meriç Dağlı“ from Unsplash/CC