'JerkTech' beats a failed parking past: Column

We've all been there. Parking in big cities is a growing daily hassle. Finding a spot on the street means driving in circles, rubbernecking, scouting for signs that someone might be approaching a car, slamming on the brakes, and blocking the street while waiting for someone to pull out. If someone were designing a system to waste time and fuel while snarling traffic, it would be hard to come up with a better plan than what we have today.

The problem has long been obvious. It is why drivers are often willing to pay $10 or even $40 for a spot in a garage. Before the Internet industrial era, that was a pretty good solution, but times have changed with increasingly sophisticated mobile technology. Just as is the case in the conflict between Uber and the entrenched cab industry, we can do better than a parking status quo that doesn't welcome change.

This May, when my team launched Haystack — a peer-to-peer mobile platform empowering drivers to exchange on-street parking spots with each other using a smartphone application, we were quickly banned in Boston. Competitors with other ideas aimed at finding a way to improve parking were just as quickly shut down from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and San Francisco. That's a step back for drivers.

Our idea was simple. Haystack armed users leaving a parking spot with the power to notify nearby drivers. Those circling the block could then navigate directly to an open space. Thousands of parkers paid about $3.00 each while drivers offering tips on spots received about $2.25. We kept a transaction fee.

Like any disruptive model, we met pushback. Critics dubbed the app "JerkTech," claiming users pay a private company for public parking spots. But let me be clear, there is nothing unsavory in unveiling the true cost of parking.

City parking may appear to be cheap or free; it is neither. Beside safety issues, frustration and lost time, Scientific American reports that in cities, 10% of a car's emissions are associated with circling for parking. According to Navigant, 30% of a city's emissions come from congestion. Those are real costs. Without information about open spots, parking is a public resource so mismanaged it benefits almost no one.

Cities have been slow to parking innovation. Sensor-based systems that aim to achieve similar results to Haystack escape scrutiny because they too claim that they're cheap or "free." That sounds too good to be true, and it is. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that San Francisco would face a $69 million investment with a $30 million annual bill for data management if it developed sensor technology citywide. That equates to a $50 annual parking fee on each San Francisco resident, whether they park or not.

Boston city councilors assailed our company (and private enterprise in general) as an evil affecting city assets. But city goers pay private companies for conveniences in all sorts of ways – even for public parking. Zipcar monopolizes over 100 on-street parking spots in Baltimore City, reserving them only for individuals willing to pay fees to access them. Zipcar is a great option for neighbors and a net positive for the city, so we're lucky to have this private company operate in this space.

Any new idea that upends an archaic industry and disperses control will cause intense scrutiny of its imperfections. Like Uber and its car-app competitors have shown, entrenched interests would rather ban progress than embrace it, as if there is a choice.

We, at Haystack, understand our solution isn't perfect, and we are taking a close look at our model. One thing is sure, though: Clinging to our parking past won't solve anything.

Eric Meyer is founder of Haystack Mobile Technologies.

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