Two Vietnamese men have led a team in successfully designing a smartphone app for urban drivers searching for an available parking spot in a bid to reduce common issues related to parking.  

Trieu Khac Thiep and Dang Duc Huy, 31, who are long-standing close schoolmates from the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, have implemented a joint project of creating Pakme – a free application for iOS and Android platforms.

Their technological brainchild encapsulates information regarding about 1,400 parking locations in two of Vietnam’s largest cities – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.

Thiep said one of the main reasons for the creation of Pakme was his empathy with frustrated spot seekers in big cities.

“Many drivers face difficulty in finding parking spaces, or are prone to be fined for parking their cars in the wrong place,” Thiep said.

He clarified that if drivers fail to secure an available spot, they can be forced to drive up to one kilometer searching for an on-street spot, which requires more fuel consumption, more time and helps cause air pollution and congestion.   

Additionally, drivers are unlikely to know the charge and operating timeframe of new parking lots, or unsure whether there are any empty spaces left there.

The team working on the Pakme project. Photo: Tuoi Tre

His passion for the app caused Thiep to depart from his stable, high-income job in a foreign company in April 2017 to concentrate on the Pakme project, which at the time was in its second phase.

In its early stages, Thiep and Huy hired college students to collect such pieces of information as capacity and costs of all parking facilities in the two cities.

The two men then examined the data for veracity and integrated it into Pakme so that anyone with the app can reach the nearest parking lot before arriving at their destination.

The difficult time for the project is over, according to Thiep, with the software currently used by roughly 10,000 people.

Latterly, on September 11, 2017, Pakme was introduced as a noteworthy idea in APEC 2017 Start-up Forum, an event for companies in their nascent stages, attended by over 300 investors and guests in Da Nang.

With the slogan ‘Connect with Technology – Park Smartly,’ the app was praised in the annual national event for newly-established enterprises held by the Business Start-up Support Center.

Thiep, Huy and their team are planning to perfect the app.

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