Parking app’s safety perk
Anew parking app developed by New Zealand start-up, Inugo, hopes to make car parks a safer stop for women.
The app, nicknamed ‘‘Your Parking Angel’’, uses technology installed into parking barrier arms to make it possible to locate nearby parking, pay, and raise the barrier arm from your smartphone. It also helps users find parking spots and displays the price and location on a smartphone using Google Maps.
Inugo chief operating officer Mark Speedy, said the recent case of the Christchurch nurse who was held up at gunpoint after she couldn’t find a car park near her workplace, shows the app has ‘‘real human value’’.
This was the third reported incident near the hospital in 18 months, amid concerns there was a shortage of safe parking in the area.
Inugo marketing operations consultant Francesca Alexander, said the safety features of the app were first raised by female beta users and testers. .
‘‘We’re really excited to see that’s one of the relevant things we developed into. With Inugo you can use the app to go straight to your car and you don’t have to roll down your window, you can use the app to go in and out,’’ said Alexander.
Universities, airports, hospitals could use the app as a way to fulfil obligations to make a safer workplace under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
The US Department of Justice found 25 per cent of rapes take place in a car park or public area.
COO Mark Speedy said, ‘‘Car parks are difficult for users in so many ways – from lost tickets to finding a pay machine.
‘‘Inugo addresses these problems in a new way, by making it much easier to pay for parking and so much safer - no more hanging around by lonely pay machines, which I am told women find frightening,’’ Speedy said.
The company expects to roll out the technology to between 10 and12 more barrier arms in the next few weeks. Inugo is already available in certain car parks in Hamilton and Auckland and has been downloaded by 91 smartphones.
The company is working on developing ways to find street parking by GPS, access council parking spaces, secure advance booking and event parking.
Technology may be used to read license plates too.