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Contactless Parking: The Veritable Future Of the Parking System In India The industry has made major strides towards contactless solutions, absolutely transforming a system that is used by millions of Indians every day

By Amit Lakhotia

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The COVID-19 outbreak changed our daily lives, halted businesses and disrupted entire economies, apart from taking thousands of lives. While the world is gradually recovering from the blow dealt by the pandemic, we are looking for more efficient and safer ways to restore normalcy in the post-COVID era. With social distancing becoming the new normal, we are seeing the introduction of digital and contactless solutions across industries.

As businesses find their footing once again and people head back to work, priorities have shifted big time. With digital taking centerstage, contactless is the way forward for every industry, including the parking ecosystem in the country. The industry has made major strides towards contactless solutions, absolutely transforming a system that is used by millions of Indians every day.

Growth of contactless parking during the outbreak

Contactless parking is not a new concept, but never before has it been a necessary one: the only option. After the pandemic outbreak, tech-driven parking solutions emerged to bridge the gap between car owners looking for safe parking spots and companies who could provide such spaces, quickly and digitally. Now, drivers can discover empty parking spots in their vicinity, book slots within a few taps on their phone screen, and pay using their preferred digital method. Gone are the days of parking parchis, cash exchange and waiting in queues to make a payment. The contactless approach does away entirely with the common touchpoints where you could come into contact with the virus. From monitoring payment to regulating the crowd within parking structures/lots, it's all remote.

Why contactless parking technology is the way forward?

Apart from meeting the pressing need for physical distancing, contactless parking solutions also address major issues faced by Indian drivers on a daily basis. With the real-time mapping of parking spaces, it saves both time and fuel for car owners. There's no more driving around in circles looking for vacant spots. Further, the daily frustration and stress caused by a lack of parking spaces is also reduced. To set the context, 58 per cent of car drivers in Delhi and Bangalore were found to be the most stressed individuals in the world, according to a report by IBM. This could be attributed to the lack of parking spaces, especially in big cities. With digital parking, a reduction in traffic jams can also be expected, since 30 per cent of these in India are caused due to parking issues.

Leading providers of contactless parking solutions are identifying and solving the problems caused by traditional parking methods. Cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru are already reaping the benefits of tech-led parking, and the penetration of this innovation will only increase in the years to come.

The only challenge, slow implementation. Since laying down infrastructure for the humungous volume of cars in India is a daunting task, digital parking solution brands are in for quite the challenge. This very factor, however, also ensures that digital technology is the veritable game changer and future of the parking industry.

While cities are thinking in the right direction, the implementation has been slow. So, devising effective and efficient parking solutions that suit the number of vehicles in cities across the country is going to be challenging. However, given the ever-increasing number of cars, contactless, digital technology is inevitably the future of the parking industry.

Amit Lakhotia

Founder & CEO, Park+

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