Lack of parking spots in Kyiv, an inconvenience for both drivers and pedestrians, pushed Igor Shapataiev and a group of software developers whom he met during the Hackaton tech conference in Odesa this year to create Tap4Parking, a tool for finding free parking spaces.
It’s
available both as a free mobile application, downloadable through the AppStore,
and a website.
Whenever a driver of one of 1.2 million vehicles in Kyiv touches the Tap4Parking
icon on his or her phone, the service recognizes the location of the vehicle and comes
up with several options on how to leave it on the street safely and reserves a space.
However, the app is still in its beta version, a product’s pre-final stage in tekkie jargon, and not all of its functions are performing yet. Later, the app will allow drivers to pay for parking directly, although now even the
reservation function is not working. Still, it tracks 2,400 private, municipal
and free parking lots around Kyiv and provides data on them. In the future, the service
plans to expand to other cities.
“Once, I was driving in a hurry to catch a train. All the parking
lots I knew where packed and I was desperate looking for a another one,”
recalls Shapataiev, 28-year-old leader of the project. “That day I
realized that if there was a convenient tool for finding parking lots around
Kyiv with an online space reservation, I would save lots of time and nerves.”
A
Chernivtsi-native graduate of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Shapataiev is
currently seeking $130,000 in seed investments to develop the app and set up the necessary sensors on each parking lot, so they would signal to the drivers
which spots are free and can be reserved. According to Shapataiev’s plans,
he needs a year to reach the break-even point, while within two years of
full-scale functioning in Kyiv the revenue could reach $2,000,000. Parking lots
are expected to be a key revenue source, as they would be sharing with
Tap4Parking 10-15 percent of the money earned from service users.
This
summer, KyivTransParkService, a municipal parking operator, launched the 516
online payment system that requires the drivers to purchase special scratch cards
and stickers, so their cars could be tracked by the service. It also allows to
pay for parking via the web. A card costs Hr 50 and a sticker – another
Hr 5.
In
order to park a vehicle, a driver must send a text message to 516 with the
number of his license plate and a parking lot number. When the driver leaves
the parking lot, he needs to text the letter C to signal the end of the parking time.
Shapatayev criticizes 516, a key competitor to Tap4Parking, for its low
user-friendliness and high commission rate. Only half of the revenue ends up in the city budget, while the other half goes to the service developers.
“All
these text messages and codes are just too much trouble. It is much easier for
a smartphone user to open an app and park his car than remember some
codes and buy scratch cards, which are not even sold everywhere,”
comments Shapataiev.
According
to KyivTransParkService, scratch cards may be found at newspaper kiosks, though
after paying a visit to three of them the Kyiv Post could not find one.
Barely one or two drivers use the service throughout the day, Andriy Martynenko,
a municipal parking spot sales operator on Pushkinska street told the Kyiv Post, adding that he had 516 scratch cards for sale.
“They
(the drivers) are (too) lazy to buy scratch cards. If someone would popularize them, then they would work,” Martynenko said.
Roman
Khmil, who coordinates the Brain Basket Foundation, an education initiative
focused on preparing programmers, says he’s an active user of 516 service.
“I’ve been using the mobile parking (service) for a few months already and
it’s much better than paying the parking lot staff,” he emphasizes.
“I am sure that the staff steals up to 90 percent of the money, so the 50
percent commission that 516 takes is still much more profitable for the City
Council.”
The Kyiv
Post could not get a comment from the KyivTransParkService despite making an
appointment with company representatives.
Oleksandr
Kava, an advisor to Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko on transportation issues,
doesn’t believe 516 or Tap4Parking will resolve the parking problem in Kyiv.
“We need effective legislative changes, but that will take up to a year to
put into force,” he said. “These mobile services will never
change the mentality of drivers. They are used to the chaotic Kyiv
infrastructure and add to this chaos by parking in random spots. We can fight
it only if we pass a law that will hold drivers accountable distantly
for breaking parking rules or not paying for parking.”
“Being
a jerk is not a lifestyle, but a special feeling in the soul,” wrote Ilia
Kenigshtein, a partner at Hybrid Capital venture fund who also blogs on city
development issues, in a May 26
Facebook post devoted to parking rule violations. It went
with a picture showing two luxurious Mercedes cars parked on the pavement in a
residential district in Kyiv.
“You
may call thousands and thousands of drivers jerks as much as you want, break
their windows and puncture their tires,” Vlad Voskresensky, a member
of parliament with Samopomich party, commented on the post. “I’m sure 95
percent of these ‘jerks’ in a different country would not even think
of doing something like this, because they would be inevitably punished.”
In
Ukraine, punishment doesn’t always find the parking rule offenders,
Voskresensky concluded.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be
reached at [email protected].
