Over five years ago, after driving in frustration for a parking space in San Francisco, we thought, “There has to be a better way.” This in itself was not an original thought, as evidenced by the many other people similarly circling for that elusive parking space. What happened next; however, was original. We started a company to come up with that better way.
We started out as Acme Innovation and were based entirely in the San Francisco Bay Area. We were looking for a way to marry consumer convenience with environmental friendliness. (This was before being green was the new black). One of our first projects allowed us to do just that.
We partnered with U.C. Berkeley, PATH, BART and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) on a groundbreaking project that would showcase the effectiveness of public / private partnerships, successful modal shifts by consumers, and tangible environmental benefits.
We were the first project in the country to use intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to broadcast real-time parking availability simultaneously to websites, mobile phones, changeable message signs (CMS) on the freeway, and allow people to reserve parking spaces at impacted transit stations in advance or in-route. This project was exhaustively studied and researched by U.C. Berkeley and showed conclusively how our system was able to get people off the freeway and onto public transportation, while saving vehicle miles traveled and a reduction of released CO2 in The Bay Area.
Our voice IVR system won the most innovative solution at SpeechTek 2006 and we have been nominated or won many awards since.
In the ITS area, we are known as the leader in our field and are cited in such publications as the Federal Study on the Advanced parking management guidance systems of Intelligent Transportation.
We have been fairly silent in the public/consumer arena over the last year, but we have not been idle. We decided to take this time to update all of the existing software and operations systems based upon the learnings of our first years in operation. The updates have been extensive, and our actual history of operations, invaluable. We have also been busy researching and expanding the intellectual property of our assets. Having been the early adopter in this space afforded us the chance to license and secure numerous Patents related to both the software and the business processes in this space.
We spun off from Acme Innovation, renamed the company ParkingCarma, and have also expanded our operations from The Bay area into Flint, Michigan, and are looking forward to the benefit that our many new hard working and loyal employees in the Flint area can bring to our success,
Over the past year, we have also noticed a number of other companies getting into our space in various capacities. This is exciting to us, as it shows that the once nascent market is now maturing.
We are looking forward to the future of Smart Parking and are excited about leading the space. To that effect, we are establishing a non-profit organization, called SmartParking.org (http://www.smartparking.org), which is open to all companies, universities, government agencies, and individuals wanting to contribute to the advancement of Smart Parking.
We at ParkingCarma strongly believe in the benefit of our service to consumers, parking asset owners, and the environment. Over the coming months you will see many changes, both online and off, to our company and our product offerings. It is not a question of if, but of when, we will be coming to your area. We invite you to become a member, check back often, and ultimately find our service invaluable to your daily lives.
After all, everyone could use a little extra Parking Karma.
Thank you, Christian McCarrick
Founder / CTO
