Oh, the parking…
Don’t we all struggle with the parking tickets wherever we go? Finding a parking meter, paying for the parking with some change, going back to put the ticket in a visible place and all these multiple times a day… Or sending an SMS to a number and never knowing what the number is and when the parking is going to end. It’s damn frustrating! That’s why we created amparcat /.ro/
amparcat /.ro/ – (a Romanian phrase which mot à mot stands for “I Parked”) is a simple and smart mobile app that allows you to pay for parking using your credit (or debit) card in public parkings in Romania. We launched the application in the end of April in Oradea, a town in the North-Western part of Romania, near the border with Hungary, and we are glad to see it’s starting to be used by more and more drivers there. The mobile app is free and available both on iOS and Android.
How it all started
Like many great things today, it all started in a hackathon some time ago, where one of our teams wanted to focus on creating a sleek and smart solution for paying for your parking. After many iterations and lots of updates in design, at the beginning of this year we had a fully functional technology to allow for the basic jobs one driver need to do when out in the town with their car: get their exact parking location mapped, see how much the parking costs there and be able to pay for the exact amount of time they want for the parking. And amparcat /.ro/ does all these and a few other tricks really well and brings a bit of cleverness into your daily struggles to explore the city jungle when you’ve got a car.
With amparcat /.ro/ we wanted to be an active player in making our cities smarter and friendlier with the help of the technology. The Mobile Parking App uses our smartphones to make the daily parking experiences more simple, faster and even cheaper.
How it works
Using amparcat app, you live gets easier and paying for the parking is piece of cake (making you bulletproof from parking fines):
- You find a parking spot and park there like a pro
- Your mobile phone instantly finds your location on the map and tells you how much the parking costs in that spot
- You select how much you want to stay there and see how much that will cost you
- You pay with your credit card the easiest way possible
- If you need to stay longer? No worries, as you can extend your parking ticket anytime within the app without the need to add your card or payment details
Why you should use this app
Saves you time
With 3 taps in the app you can pay for parking wherever you want in the city. There is no need for walking around to find parking meters or text your money away.
Cheaper
In Oradea, our first town where the app was activated this solution is cheaper than paying by SMS and at the same price as paying at the parking meter. With 2 RON you can park for 1 hour and you can extend the parking for how long you want. There is also a per day price, which saves you some nice money.
Easier and smarter
If you don’t have change, no problem: your credit card got you covered. You don’t know where the parking meter is, no problem: your phone got you covered and you don’t even need to move away from the car. You don’t know where you left your car? No problem, the app will get you back to it. Smart, ahh?
Where you can use it
We are currently running tests in Oradea, but this is just the beginning, others cities in Romania being on the way to being activated. Soon you’ll be able to pay smarter & cheaper for your parking in many other places.
If you want amparcat /.ro/ in your city, let us know. Till then, download it and see how cool it is.
Sinziana Chitea
Content Marketer
Content Marketing Specialist, teasing everyone into taking cute pictures for Instagram. Discovering the tech world bit by bit, and writing it all down on the agency's blog. Enthusiastic about everything visual. And sweets and dogs.
