As the number of cars is continuously increasing in the cities and parking slots are limited, therefore drivers have to waste plenty of time looking for a parking lot.
Thankfully to the modern IT industry has rendered a resolution. Parking apps bring ease to citizens since they save time and audacities.
The fundamental function of such applications is discovering and booking free spots nearby. They also allow cashless payments, GPS, and more.
That’s why we’ve created a thorough guide on how to build a parking app.
We’re going to discuss parking app features and steps on how to develop such an app.
How Does Parking App Work?
If you want to develop a parking app, you would have thought from the user’s point of view.
The six main steps required in the parking app:
- Step 1: Searching. Users can locate the parking area by using GPS or enters the necessary address.
- Step 2: Comparing. The app provides several parking options. The user can apply the filter to compare price and distance to find the perfect match.
- Step 3: Booking. The driver will have access to book parking space earlier and get an access code.
- Step 4: Paying. Users can pay by using a credit card before or by cash later.
- Step 5: Driving/Navigation. The parking app will show navigation to the parking lot.
- Step 6: Parking. The driver can park his car in the parking lot.
Steps How to Build a Parking App
To build a parking app you need to follow these 7 steps:
- Design a business plan for a parking application.
- Study the opponent.
- Choose skilled developers to develop an app.
- Choose various necessary features.
- Take an intuitive design for the app.
- Take advance features to make the app more unique.
- Update it regularly.
Parking App Business Plan: Models
If you want to build a parking lot of software, you need to start with a business idea because there are plenty of functions that a parking app need, from online payments to navigation based on GPS.
The three most common ones: navigation, navigation & booking, complete solution.
We’ll consider all the details below.
Navigation
This option is the basic one because it provides users one primary function, find a parking spot near the car’s location.
Such an application can’t book the free parking spot however, parking apps of this type are perfect for an MVP version to start the business.
Navigation & Booking
This type is more complicated than the first one. It allows users to find and reserve the chosen parking spot.
Additionally, the app can navigate the driver to the booked place. This parking service app tends to provide a flexible payment system.
So, the users usually can pay by credit card or in cash. There are also such features as adding extra parking time or navigation back to the parked car.
By the way, this business model is the most widespread among existing parking applications like BestParking.
Full of Functionality
Developing such a parking app tends to be more expensive compared to the previous ones.
Such applications solve the parking problem completely. They allow users to book the parking spot.
Additionally, it’s possible to order door-to-door service. There are valets that can take and park the car.
How does a parking app work? The user needs to pre-book the parking space and choose the time and place to give the car keys to the valet.
The valet takes the car, parks it, and returns the vehicle to the owner in the discussed time.
The service is secure since the users can look through the valet’s photo, reviews, and more.
Popular Parking Applications
To create a parking app, you should study your competitors first. Parking management solutions development requires preparations.
So we’ve chosen four popular projects from the US and Europe to review.
BestParking
BestParking serves its service in many cities across North America for finding and booking spots at the ablest price
The application has a compelling feature as pre-booking. So that the users can book a parking place for a precise date and period of time.
BestParking renders definitive rates on the map to let users decide. It is available on the Play Store and App Store.
ParkingPanda
ParkingPanda is another parking application platform that offers to find a perfect spot near your current location also providing high-quality services.
The app interacts with around 2,500 lots and garages.
This application gives to reserve a parking place in several big cities across the US and Canada, including NYC, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, and more.
It also guarantee secure payments with credit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. It is available on the Play Store and App Store.
Parkopedia
Parkodepia is the largest parking service app. It’s possible to book a parking spot in 89 countries and approximately 15,000 cities all over the world.
The app allows the user to find a parking spot using the current location of the car or entering the address.
Additionally, Parkopedia works as a navigation system and provides users with the direction to the chosen lot.
Users can filter parking spaces by free spots, credit card payments, and more. Available on Play Store and App Store.
Parclick
This service offers parking spaces in more than 250 cities in Europe.
Parclick can find parking spots for cars, vans, motorbikes, and more. Additionally, it’s possible to pre-book a space to park for a long time.
The service can satisfy the needs of any client as it allows to find a parking spot by price, distance, car type, and more. Available on Play Store and App Store.
Parking App Features
Parking app development requires a defined set of features. Usually, they are divided into two types according to their complexity, basic and advanced.
It’s common to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with some basic functions and, after that, add some advanced and unique features.
MVP allows you to launch an app and get some feedback from users. Based on this data, you can decide what features to add.
Basic Features of a Parking App
GPS tracking
To make the application more easy-to-use, it’s necessary to enable GPS tracking.
This technology allows to find the location of the car and determine the distance to the nearest parking lot.
Searching
The searching process should be as easy as possible. For instance, the app can offer to find the nearest spot in one tap.
Booking
This feature allows reserving a parking spot. The user can find a place that fits the budget and pre-pay it on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.
It allows for avoiding everyday reservations.
Price comparison
Parking applications tend to provide an opportunity to compare prices. So, it’s easy for users to find the cheapest place nearby.
Various payment options
Users should have several payment options to feel comfortable and secure. So, such services as PayPal should be integrated.
Advance Features for Parking App
Basic features are enough to launch the parking app.
However, to allure more users and make your application unique, it’s necessary to add some complex functionality.
There are some ideas below that you can use during parking app development.
Push notifications
One of the most prominent features for user engagement since it’s possible to send notifications about discounts, application updates, and more.
Additionally, it’s useful to notify the users 15 minutes before the parking spot expiring. Users can prolong the place or come back to the car in time.
Several cities
An opportunity to choose parking places in other cities is necessary while traveling or business trips.
Waiting list
Every driver has a favorite parking lot. However, it can be full. So the user can be notified when a parking spot becomes available.
Heat map
The application can show the busiest routes in the real-time mode. Based on this data, users can make decisions about their booking.
Tag location
This feature allows saving the place where you’ve parked the car. Additionally, the user can share the parking location via social media or messengers.
There are various exciting features to implement during parking app development.
However, it’s always better to start with basic functions and add advanced features gradually.
Required Team of App Developers
If you want to create an app, you need skilled and experienced developers. There are two reliable variants hiring an in-house team or outsourcing company.
Outsourcing has become popular these days. Outsourcing companies offer affordable prices along with the high quality of the final product.
Having decided to cooperate with a software development company, you need to study reviews and previous projects.
People pay a lot of attention to the application design, so it should be user-friendly and convenient.
Users don’t want to spend time trying to understand how the app works. Design can assist in gaining users and their loyalty.
Creating a UI/UX design can take plenty of time, depending on your requirements and its complexity.
Tech Stack Used for Parking App Development
The tech stack of your app is more important than what you think about it.
It will responsible for the stability and scalability of your project.
Applications can be native, hybrid, or cross-platform and each of them has certain distinctiveness those you need to consider previously.
For instance, native apps are the most stable and provide the best user experience.
However, their development requires more time. Below we’ve listed the approximate tech stack to develop a parking app.
- Kotlin for Android
- Swift for iOS
- Google Cloud Messaging for Android
- Apple Push Notification Service for iOS
- Nginx
- MongoDB or SQL
- Google Maps
- Amazon CloudFront
Ready to Develop Parking App?
The Appsinvo team is glad to help! We provide free consultation and project estimation.
Since there are a lot of factors that required attention and features to implement, Parking app development requires pre-preparation.
The final outcome will depend upon your imagination and our development team.
Appsinvo is a mobile app development company from Delhi, India. We provide onshore and offshore mobile app development services and have expertise in various domains.
How Much Does it Cost to Develop Parking App
As we have already mentioned in our previous blogs that you can’t pre-determine the development cost of an app it only depends upon the complexity and features.
So, the estimated cost of Parking App development is 6,500-10,000 USD. For more details, you can contact our sales representative.
So if you have any crazy plan to make others’ life easy by aiding them to find the Parking lot feel free to contact us. We would love to hear.
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Toddles!! ❤🙏
Thanks, for sharing this article here. A very useful guide to building any parking app. We have also developed one parking management system – Parkeee. Can you please check it and let us know how we can make it better. You can check this app here https://parkeee.com/
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