It used to be, stop what you are doing and sprit back to the car and feed the meter before you get a ticket or towed. Today, you can add coins through your smartphone.
ParkX (formerly Park Genius), a mobile app that allows motorists to pay remotely for parking, was developed by students from the UofA Eller College of Management and the McGuire Entreprenership Program Ross Shanken, Austin Weiss and Thomas Maguire.
Since our last report, the company has hit more milestones and expanding at a rapid pace.
The company was a finalist in the ACA Innovation Challenge taking home $250,000. Soon after, they moved operations to Phoenix for the “resources and tight-knit tech community where we get the attention and can showcase what we’ve done and what we can do,” Shanken said.
In March, they recently changed their name from Park Genius to ParkX to facilitate their new private label platform, Shanken said. Clients, including City of Corpus Christi with 1,200 meters and private lots in Tucson, have branded their mobile parking meter program using ParkX software.
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“We brought on this private labeling. As cities need different solutions, ParkX can customize what they want. We want to make sure they have the best application and modify the features based on the city’s needs,” Shanken said.
They have also added bilingual features to the platform and implemented this for Corpus Christi.
Recently the City of El Paso sealed the deal and added their technology under private label “Park El Paso” to 2,000 on-street parking meters, Shanken said.
The company was recognized as a finalist in the City of Phoenix Smart City Hack; if they win, ParkX will head to Barcelona to represent AZ in the Smart City Expo.
“Being a finalist is pretty awesome,” Shanken said.
Down the road the company looks to have their platform integrated into various parking entities, “We do plan to move into more surface lots and parking garages, and [we are working] on deals to handle citation processing, permits and event parking,” Shanken said.
For now, they are focused on their current clients, fine-tuning their platform and continuing to grow in Arizona.
“We are trying to grow locally so we can expand nationally. We want to be a highlight of what Phoenix has to offer,” Shanken said.
Read more coverage on ParkX here.
Read more about Arizona startup here.
Graphics provided by ParkX
