Parx Partners with Anagog to Help You Find A Parking Spot

I grew up in New York, and there’s one phrase I remember my parents saying a lot as we drove to and from our destinations: “too much rubber, not enough road.” The problems with finding room for all those cars in New York only intensified whenever we took trips to Manhattan—and the worst element of it all was when we tried finding a parking spot. Now that I live in Minneapolis, the problems of parking aren’t quite as bad as Manhattan, but there’ve been more than a few times where I’ve stuck my car much further from my destination than I would’ve liked. But a new partnership between Israeli tech companies Anagog and Parx hope to change all that.

According to a press release published today, the new partnership will improve Anagog’s real-time parking map that will supposedly alert users with “push notifications telling them when a relevant parking spot is about to be vacated.” How does it do this? I have no idea—the press release refers to Anagog’s “parking algorithm that identifies where and when a car has been parked”—but if this actually works as advertised, it has the potential to make urban driving and living a whole lot better. And that’s amazing.

So Anagog’s got the algorithm, while Parx brings its EasyPark municipal parking system. Add in Anagog’s FindMyCar app providing crowd-sourced information about parking spots, and it seems like this thing just might work.

“We all saw what crowdsourcing did for traffic and navigation, and we are excited to see this concept brought to the world of parking,” said Parx’s CEO, Ofer Tziperman. “Anagog’s unique location based technology is a perfect complementary solution for EasyPark users that guides them every step of the process from finding the free spot to paying for the actual parking place as well as reminding the user to switch off the payment meter.”

Comparing this app to innovations in navigation apps makes a ton of sense, and is a perfect analogy. Just today, I managed to avoid traffic because of the crowd-sourced Waze data Google integrated into its Maps and Navigation apps. Why shouldn’t the same kind of arrangement work for parking, too?

So far, Anagog’s algorithm has been tested in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the press release notes that programs are in the process of being rolled out in Europe and the United States as well. I’m hoping that I get the chance to test it out here in Minneapolis sooner rather than later.

There’s just one question that I’m stuck with: if we’re all using Anagog and Parx to find spots, won’t we all still wind up trying to get the same spot? Hopefully the app will address that and we can spend less time worrying about finding a spot, and more time enjoying whatever we’re doing once we’ve parked.