EasyPark’s Find & Pay app could mean you NEVER need to hunt for free parking spaces again – and it hits the UK next year
New app will predict where is best to park, give you a route and allow you to pay all from your smartphone
DRIVERS waste 2,500 hours of their life searching for somewhere to park but a new app claims it can slash that in half.
EasyPark's Find & Pay app takes the strain off hunting for a space in busy city streets by predicting where there's a free bay.
The clever tech collects crowdsourced data to create an accurate, real-time probability map of every city block for any time of day.
A "Find-o-meter" gives a graphical representation of the likelihood of finding a space in your chosen location.
Using this information, it gives users turn-by-turn route guidance to their destination, passing along streets where parking is most likely to be available.
And because you've selected your destination, the Find & Pay app will juggle walking distance to narrow down where's most convenient to leave your car.
When you do find a spot, users are able to pay for parking and remotely top-up via the app so you don't have to dash back to a meter to put more change in.
Find & Pay will be first introduced in Stockholm with roll out across more than 30 other major European cities later this year.
London and New York will follow in 2018.
As well as cutting time wasted searching for a space, EasyPark claims it'll reduce congestion and pollution in cities, too.
An estimated 30 per cent of traffic in busy cities is caused by people searching for parking and it contributes 50million tonnes of CO2 across Europe.
Johan Birgersson, CEO of EasyPark Group, said the firm has developed the app over the last decade and spent €10million on R&D.
He added: "Today’s navigation options take you to your destination, but fall flat when you need to find somewhere to park.
"It’s a very frustrating experience when you get where you need to go, but simply can’t park your car – Find & Pay solves this significant challenge for motorists.
"We’re hugely excited to start bringing the technology to market and to see the profound impact it will have on driver frustration and the challenges of congestion and pollution in cities."