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Angry Aps I: Parkman

This is not about the  great success of the Finnish Gaming Industry

There has been lot of talk in media about Finnish ICT industry after the great success Rovio and Supercell have made with their Angry Birds and Clash of Clans games. But since there has been so much fuzz about the Finnish gaming companies, I want to focus in to other great Finnish ICT services with promising potential. These I will bring up in my new "Angry Aps" -series. Criteria to the selection of the services is that these applications or services have somehow helped me in my everyday life - in a way or another.

Parkman - a parking meter on your mobile phone

The first application in this series is Parkman, formerly known as Parkkinappi.

I downloaded Parkman to my mobile phone around a month ago and I cannot understand I had not done that earlier. Parkman is a parking meter in your pocket. The application makes the everyday city parking so much easier. How often you have parked to the spot and realised that you have no chance to the parking meter? To me it happens a lot.

Parkman takes that stress away. The company behind the application, Neligrate Oy, won Apps4Finland competition in 2011. Apps4Finland is a competition where you can compete with ideas and functional web applications, widgets, mashups, mobile apps and other digital utilities that, make use of  public data. Winning the competition was a kick off to the company according to its founder Matias Lindroos.

Many international parking companies (like EasyPark) have their own solutions around but I find Parkman more user friendly and it is cheaper to use.

Registration process

I found out the benefits of the application from my first parking. I was going to do some grocery shopping at Turku Market Hall and I found out that I did not have any coins with me. Since you get parking tickets fast behind the market hall, I started to search parking application to my mobile phone. I had noticed that many of my friends were already using Parkkinappi.

For the registration you need your bank's PIN codes. Luckily I had them with me. For the registration the system needs your name, address and the register plate number of your car. Address is important. The company sends you Parkman sticker which you stick to your windshield. It tells the officers that this car has paid its parking over the phone and they can check it from their devices. I recommend that you do the registration before you park, since inputing the necessary data takes some time + you need PIN codes for the bank as well.

The price - it's cheaper than coins, man!

After you have registered you can start to use the application. The cost for the registration is [for the private person] € 4,99 and parking costs the zone fee + administration fee of €0,49. But here is the catch: you pay only for the time you have actually spent in a parking lot. So you do not have to feed any extra coins to the meter in order to keep you safe. You pay for the time spent.

That actually saves you the money. If I look back of my last seven parkings the average cost (including the administration fee) has been in average €0,74 (total €5,07). With coins I would have spend at least €8-10 in order to be sure not to get any tickets. And as you can see, Parkman uses the cents in the time count.

Complimentary registration link for the Parkman is: https://www.parkmanworld.com/site/3LNWtgNMk6
Use your mobile phone to that link. I got the link after my registration and it promises that "Every person that registers through your link, gets ParkMan for a discounted price!" And to be straight: it does not promise any benefits or discounts to me.


How it works?

Parkman works in the major smartphones platforms: iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile. After the registration process you can start to use it (be sure to have a sticker - or inform the officers in some other way that you are using the application). The user interface is very intuitive and you get this from the first time you use it, but here is how it works:

  • You open the application and it starts to detect your position from the city map. 
  • The application finds out the parking spot where you are and loads the zone fee automatically (it takes around 30 s depending on your phone). 
  • Set in the default parking time (or customize it to your needs). This is a safety proceeding. It stops your parking automatically after the time has passed - and you do not pay lots of extra if you forget to stop the parking when driving away. That can happen. Be sure that your default time is enough for your needs.
  • When the application has spotted you to the map the parking slider "Start parking/Aloita pysäköinti" appears down of the screen. Just move slider to the right and the clock starts running
  • When you return to your car, move the slider back to the left and clock stops. The application informs you what the parking has cost to you and saves it to your records. You pay only for the actual time. Or if you do not care about the cost & time, just let it stop automatically.
  • The company charges your registered credit card once a month. You can also order a receipt from the selected parkings to your email and yes, you can register all your family cars to the system too.
  • And a bonus: if you do not remember where you parked your car, the application finds your car for you.

Where it works

Currently Parkman is available in selected Nordic countries and places. In Finland you can park in Helsinki, Turku, Porvoo, Pori, Kotka and Oulu. In Sweden in Jönköping, Uppsala and Malmö and in Danmark in Copenhagen and Fredriksberg. I guess more cities and places will come - or maybe you can tip your city council of the great service available out here.

To me Parkman means lower parking costs, no parking tickets and no stress about the coins anymore. I can warmly recommend the service. And I guess I am not alone. Most of the audience ratings in all of the application markets rate the highest 5-star rating.

The writer has no connections for the company behind the application or to the founders of it. The writer has not received any benefits for evaluating the application and writing these lines. The opinions and experiences of the application are only writer's own and some observations might not be 100% accurate or true. So before registration, check up the facts and figures by yourself, but I believe these facts are pretty accurate.

Parkman application screen. The green bubble in the middle indicates where you are about to park and informs you the hourly fee. By moving the green arrow to the right in Slide to Park starts your parking in the spot. The information above indicates the register number of the car and 4h states the parking time. NOTE, that in many central areas the parking area is limited to 1 or 2 hours. I have not tested this but I believe you can't stay 4 hours in 1 hour spot.
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