Zenpark, the automatised shared car park
Zenpark is a French company which offers its users a shared parking service. The principle? Instead of leaving unoccupied parking spaces located in public or private institutions or inaccessible buildings, why not share them?
Users can book their place in an automated Zenpark car park either in advance or at the last moment via an application and then access the parking lot with their smartphone. An invoice is then sent to the end user, and the operator ensures that the proposed tariff is on average 25% lower than the price of parking on the street.
There are many benefits to the system including that it will help alleviate congestion in cities (where it is estimated that the average motorist must do 3 laps of the block before finding a space), it will limit the pollution caused by these vehicles and will also create more than 7 million parking spaces across Europe in the long-term.
For now, the start-up is focusing mainly on the French market, with shared parking occurring every two or three days, according to William Rosenfeld, Zenpark’s designer. The user base is in a period of dramatic expansion: + 500% in 12 months, and 15 tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided each year.
The long-term goal is twofold. Firstly, to develop the concept, with the target of opening more than 1000 “zenparks” within 2 years, but more broadly to make Zenpark an industry standard in smart-cities. In this context, the company envisages using their parking spaces as a site for additional services such as carpooling or car sharing.
