| Danial Norjidi |
DRIVERS who are tired of having to spend large amounts of time looking for parking may soon be able to rest easy, as a group of students at Politeknik Brunei is working on an app that allows users to reserve parking spaces at key commercial locations.
The app called ‘Park Chaser’, is the brainchild of students Dayangku Nurul Amirah Izzati binti Pengiran Suhaini, Dayangku Nur Hazirah binti Pengiran Abdul Rahman, Nikmatul Amalina binti Ahmad, Amal ‘Afina binti Abdul Malik and Nur Hani Aqilah binti Azmi.
The app was recently featured at Politeknik Brunei’s second entrepreneurship exhibition, ENTx 2016, which took place from May 10-11.
As they explained, Park Chaser allows people to find and book available parking spaces at a number of strategic locations. While the app is still in the early planning stages, it has received a positive response, and the students are working on making it a reality.
Speaking in a recent interview, Dayangku Nurul Amirah Izzati explained, “This is a parking application that helps people to easily find parking spaces, because we provide them with maps and the exact location as to where the available parking spaces are.”
The team of students behind Park Chaser – Dayangku Nurul Amirah Izzati binti Pengiran Suhaini, Da-yangku Nur Hazirah binti Pengiran Abdul Rahman, Nikmatul Amalina binti Ahmad, Amal ‘Afina binti Abdul Malik and Nur Hani Aqilah binti Azmi. – AZROL AZMI
“They can also book the parking spaces at the chosen area so that people can easily choose the parking space that they want,” she said. They only have to pay $2 for the booking.”
Once available, it will be downloadable on both Android and iOS devices, and will feature a search function through which users can find their desired location. They can click a tab called ‘available reservations’ and choose an available parking space. Users then just need to enter some information to confirm their booking.
To make this work, they intend to rent parking spaces at key shopping areas, and then allow people to book these spaces and thus ensure that they can have a place to park when they arrive at a selected destination.
Dayangku Nurul Amirah Izzati shared that they are looking to have parking spaces at five different shopping complexes: The Mall Gadong, Times Square Shopping Centre, The Airport Mall, Hua Ho Manggis Mall and also Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Shopping Complex. Their initial target is to have 10 parking spaces at each location, which they can then offer to people through their Park Chaser app.
Should the application prove successful, they will be looking to expand it further to other locations.
Explaining how the idea came about, Dayangku Nurul Amirah Izzati said, “Every time I go out with my parents and friends, they all complain about how difficult it can be to find parking and how long they have to wait, sometimes even over 30 minutes, before they get a space.”
The app is expected to help solve this problem for its users, and make life easier, at least in finding parking.
On the response so far, she said, “We have received great feedback, and a lot of people think it’s a good idea to launch it and make it happen.”
Asked when they are looking to make this app a reality, the students shared that they are hoping to work it out during their upcoming semester break.
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