Even parking garages are going the way of mobile shopping these days.
SpotHero, an online parking-reservation firm, just launched its New York service to help garage companies conquer their inefficiencies — and save unlucky drivers from accruing parking tickets — by mobilizing garage-inventory vacancies.
(And those violations add up: More than 7.4 million tickets, costing a total of $466 million, were handed out in New York in the 2013 fiscal year, ended June 30.)
About 46 percent of Manhattanites own cars, and there are 1,000 garages in Manhattan alone, according to SpotHero co-founder Jeremy Smith.
Nevertheless, “30 percent of spots are unused even during peak times. New York City has some of the biggest parking problems in the country,” says Smith.
Calling itself the Orbitz or OpenTable for parking, SpotHero is working with 100 garages to help sell inventory, and this number is growing by the day. Drivers can seamlessly book daily or monthly parking spots using their credit cards, and compare prices throughout the city.
Drivers will never pay higher than the drive-up rate, and in many cases, they’ll see a 40 percent to 50 percent discount on the rates they pay, says Smith. SpotHero takes a small commission on each parking-spot transaction.
The median price for a spot is between $39 and $44 for one day, but there are also a number of options that are around $18 a day.
As you might expect, Midtown is one of the most in-demand areas of the city, while the Upper West Side and Upper East Side are more residential and therefore less desired.
The app seeks to revolutionize the industry, which previously relied on signage outside garages to attract customers. In addition, many garages remain cash-only, an obvious hindrance in an increasingly card-using society.
New York is the latest city in the app’s repertoire, joining Chicago, Boston and Washington, DC.
SpotHero raised $2.5 million in venture capital funding in December 2012 in a round led by Battery Ventures.