It's a cold Saturday afternoon in December in Boston. Jane Doe, single mother of a teenage daughter and six year old son, decided to get some last-minute holiday shopping done. Jane's daughter is at cheerleading practice and there is nobody around to watch her son.
Jane decided she would head over to Newbury Street first. Knowing that parking is usually a nightmare in Boston, particularly the Newbury Street area on a weekend day around the holidays, Jane reached for her iPhone and opened the SmarkIt app. Luckily for Jane, Newbury Street is one of the pilot areas for SmarkIt's smart parking meters. In other words, the parking meters on Newbury Street are wirelessly connected to SmarkIt's servers and allow for advanced reservations at a small premium. Because these meters are tied into SmarkIt's servers, Jane can also see which spots are open and determine when any spots will become open.
To Jane's dismay, she discovered that all spots on Newbury Street were taken. However, she noticed that one of the spots right by her daughter's favorite clothing store was available for reservation in 45 minutes. Seeing that Jane was in no particular rush and lived 30 minutes from Newbury Street, she decided to pay the small premium and reserve her spot. Jane arrived five minutes into her reservation and her spot was waiting for her. Instead of having to walk a few blocks in the cold with her six year old son, she only had to walk less than a block.
Of course the store was packed and the lines were long. Jane underestimated the time she would need in this store and only reserved her spot for 30 minutes. With only five minutes remaining, SmarkIt sent Jane a notification with an option to extend her reservation. Luckily for her, nobody had reserved the spot and she was able to add 15 minutes to her reservation while waiting in line to check out. For only a few extra dollars, Jane was able to find and reserve a parking spot, avoid a far walk in in the cold weather with her young child, and extend her reservation to avoid getting a parking ticket.
This is a great example of the value that your product can provide to the population of Boston and the immediate areas.
ReplyDeleteOne question though, what happens if Jane needs to extend her stay but someone shot in for a reservation which would conflict with her extension? I may have misread your post but it seems like that is within the realm of possibility.