Have An Empty Parking Space? Here's How You Can Rent It Out

Parking menace is something that every city dweller faces every day. While the city population rises and more and more people buy vehicles, the infrastructure is not fit to accommodate these rising numbers. This has also lead to issues, including unauthorised constructions, encroachment, and steeply rising parking prices in commercial spaces. It is now that the state governments and authorities are taking steps to address this menace.

While the government and authority approved rules make parking more organised, there are ways in which technology can also contribute in fighting parking issues. One such organisation is the Kolkata-based startup Park 24x7. A smartphone-based app, it allows you to find a parking lot for your vehicle and also, rent out your parking space to others when not in use.

The platform, that at present operates in Mumbai, Bangalore, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar and Kolkata, has more than 650 private vendors to rent out their parking lots. These parking lots are not just in the commercial spaces, including malls, corporate parks, restaurants, but also allow individuals to rent out a parking lot in their residential space. You can also look for a legal street side parking space. Park 24x7 app also gives the user real-time information on traffic status, buy paperless parking tickets, prepaid parking card and also, locate their car in the parking lot.

In a conversation with Gunjan Piplani of PropGuide, Avishek Tarafdar, Founder and CEO, Park 24x7 shares how this platform is apt in today's time.

Piplani: What is your take on the current parking scenario in the country?

Tarafdar: Parking in India is done in a completely unorganised fashion. The existing operations or implementing new rules is being done without any technological support, making the designated parking lots underutilised. The need is to use technology that not just benefits the authorities but also the car owners. The aim is to ease the parking woes of many and help them find the right parking space for their vehicle.

On the other hand, there is also an acute shortage of parking spaces, especially in Indian metros. While the lack of space makes it difficult to create parking lots that are spread out, the state governments are now planning to build multilevel parking. These parking spaces are planned away from the commercial or busy city centres and so, are not a choice of many looking for parking spaces for a short while. 

Piplani: How can parking woes be curbed at various levels?

Tarafdar: The government is doing a great job in keeping a tab on the people buying vehicles. Recently it implemented a law where anyone who buys a car will have to show a proof of legal parking space available. This move is expected to bring down illegal parking, which is a common practice across Indian cities.

On a developer's level, in my opinion, every new building must have at least 50 per cent more parking space than what the structure at present have. The builder can sell these parking space to the municipal corporations for public parking and get tax benefits, if any.

Moreover, these spaces can also be given to third-party vendor to run a pay-and-park system.

Piplani: Talking about Park 24x7, who can rent out a parking space and how?

Tarafdar: Anyone who has a parking space to spare can rent it out to others to park their vehicle. This space can be in a commercial building, a hotel, a hospital, a school, a church, a mall, a private home garage or a restaurant. 

Using our website and our partner app, anyone can sign up as a provider and fill in certain details. This include images of the parking lot, the time frame it is available for, the price it is available for parking amenity and ownership verification document. The property is then verified by our team in 24 hours and once approved, the parking lot is visible in the listing on the customer's mobile app. A vendor can manage the space and the bookings by using the cloud parking management, CRM and partner mobile app.

Piplani: Who can benefit from this platform and how easy is it for the users?

Tarafdar: Property owners and parking operators can use our Cloud Parking Management Solution to easily manage their parking facility from even far off locations. We offer e-wallet and payment getaways that ensures payments are made to the vendor, reducing the cash leakage from cash payment collection. Being a cloud-based system, the parking attendant can get real-time information of how many more cars can be accommodated at any point of time, the daily revenue details, the car log with entry and exit time and complete details of car owners which increase security of the property. 

On the other hand, car owners can get real-time parking availability information, compare price of different parking spaces, reserve a guaranteed parking space and navigate directly without wasting anytime by circling around to find a parking space.

Piplani: What kind of parking lots can be put on rent?

Tarafdar: Parking space in a commercial building, a hotel, a hospital, a school, a religious space, a mall, a private home garage, a restaurant, a commercial parking garage, or a multilevel parking can be rented out on our platform. A user can get guaranteed reserved parking at these spaces. For on-street parking, we allot space on first-come-first-serve basis.

Piplani: How financially viable is the model for those looking for parking spaces?

Tarafdar: Using our app, the user can compare parking prices of different slots in nearby areas. They can pick the ones based on their budget or proximity. We have a dynamic pricing option for parking. So, if the property owner activates the dynamic pricing option using the CRM, then based on the demand the parking rates may rise or drop when compared to that of the on-street parking rates. The problem is so acute in a few locations that people pay twice or thrice more to the on-street parking attendant to manage a space. 

Piplani: Are there any international best practices/apps/services that have proved to be a successful model that can work for India, too?

Tarafdar: Some of the apps internationally are doing exceptionally good. These include SpotHero, Justpark, ParkMe and ParkingPanda In India, GetmyParking is a platform that many can learn from.