The founders of local cashless and ticketless parking app, KaChing, say the service will be available at two more South African shopping centres as early as March.
KaChing is a free parking app that can be downloaded from the Apple iStore and Google Play Store.
Launched on a commercial pilot basis in 2015, the "seamless" parking service is already available at three shopping centres, namely Melrose Arch, Campus Square and Morningside. On Tuesday, the service was officially launched with the announcement that it will be available at two more shopping centres.
William Cosby, executive director at KaChing, says the team had to tick three crucial boxes when it began its journey.
The first box was the tech box where KaChing built reliable technology that actually works; the second was the value-add box for consumers; and the third box was whether the landlords would buy into this service and install the system, he says.
"Having ticked off those three boxes, we decided to move to full commercial rollout and that's where we are operating now at three sites, with another two in the pipeline," says Cosby.
KaChing co-founder Jaco Marais states The Pavilion in Durban and Thrupps Illovo Centre in Johannesburg are next on the company's list of shopping centres that will debut the cashless parking service.
Marais says: "As drivers, we understand the frustration of waiting in queues to pay for parking and get through the boom. We figured there had to be a better way, and decided to use technology to create an innovative solution."
He adds: "We founded the company on the back of having a horrible parking experience at a shopping centre where it took half an hour to exit the parkade and that's how we decided there should be a better way to park."
Secure parking
Using licence plate recognition (LPR) technology, the KaChing app provides a cashless and ticketless parking service.
The company says the LPR technology captures photographic video or still images of licence plates. These are processed by a series of algorithms that provide an alphanumeric conversion, which is compared to KaChing's database of registered users.
LPR technology opens the boom when motorists arrive at and leave a parking lot, and automatically deducts the parking fee from their credit cards or prepaid accounts.
Above ensuring smooth operation, KaChing provides landlords and users with other security benefits. Landlords are presented with a "watchlist" of suspicious vehicles and alerted when one of these vehicles enters their premises, while users get a notification as soon as their vehicle leaves a parking area, giving them vital minutes to take action should their car be stolen.
Future of parking
To get the buy-in for this service at shopping centres, KaChing has had to partner with the parking management companies.
The business model adopted by KaChing is a collaborative approach, says Cosby. "Had we built a system that was dependent on the incumbent, we were going nowhere fast and we recognised that early on."
According to Marais, KaChing is working closely with parking management companies because they amplify the benefit of the service to the shopping centre landlords, so it's a win-win scenario.
"Essentially, if the parking management companies partner with us they can deliver the service to shopping centre landlords now," he says.
Marais says the return on investment when implementing KaChing is dramatic and easily achieved in a short period compared to conventional systems. "As we continue to develop the technology, we are excited about the new value-adds we will be able to offer our partners and users."
KaChing says it anticipates to break-even and be profitable by the end of this year.
Cosby notes the greatest cost in the company has been salaries. "We haven't burnt through a lot of cash. We've taken a capital-light approach when we built our business model."
Plans to expand KaChing to other favourite shopping spots are in the works, says Marais.
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