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App Calculates The Distance Between You And The Parking Meter

Once Parking Maestro receives information about the parking restrictions, it uses your location to let you know how long it'll take for you to get back before the meter maid or tow truck shows up.

What’s the Latest Development?


In both Sydney and Brisbane, Mark Schroder found himself dealing with a problem that’s all too common to drivers in big cities: knowing when to move his car from a restricted parking area. So he and Patrick Acheampong decided to create a solution using basic smartphone technology. The resulting app, Parking Maestro, uses the parking information provided by the user (via a smartphone scan of the parking sign or manual entering of data) to alert them when it’s time to head back to the car in order to avoid a ticket or worse. It tracks the user’s location to calculate the distance they’ll have to travel.

What’s the Big Idea?

Schroder says, “Whether I was at home, at work or going out with friends, I realised my car was nearly always parked in a restricted area…There are few people living in [the city] who have their own garage and don’t have to worry about when their parking is expiring.” He and Acheampong built the free iOS app with the help of ilab, a University of Queensland startup accelerator. Program director Bernie Woodcroft says he’s excited for their future success: “Parking is a huge problem in the world’s cities.”

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Read it at Phys.org


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