Before starting their travels, drivers can use the trive.park app to book and pay for a parking slot in a car park, and communicate directly with the barrier system via Bluetooth on their smartphones. Behind the new development of the software developer trive.me, part of the EDAG Group, is a data and payment platform through which operators can digitise their multi-storey car parks. In this way, the software opens up the way for new, digital business models, which can be made available to drivers and other mobility partners via apps and appropriate interfaces.
"A central element of our smart parking system is the communication between the trive.park app and the car park barrier system," explains Alexander Süssemilch, trive.me product owner. The barrier system is opened and closed via Bluetooth, straight from the app. The app solution means that drivers can avoid the hassle of parking tickets or other access media. Another new feature is that, thanks to trive.park, the customer can book special, individual parking offers and discounts in the car park of their choice with just a few clicks. This booking is directly input in the car park's software, guaranteeing that a space will be kept free for the selected period.
IOTA’S Tangle distributed ledger technology is open-source and fee-free, solving the problem of traditional, prohibitively high transaction costs from traditional payment service providers. Payments are processed in the background via the IOTA cryptocurrency, which is currently considered to be one of the most promising technologies in the field of micro-payments. IOTA is geared to automated communication and payments between IoT devices. Together with other partners trive.me qualifies this new decentralized service for the automotive industry.
In combination with the trive.park app, the use of the Tangle technology opens the door to the future use of trends such as eMobility, self-driving cars, urban mobility and other new mobility services. This means that, in the future, it will be possible to organise parking in such a way that added value is created for customers - for example, charging eCars, combinations with other mobility services such as e-bikes or service packages for the car while it is parked.
"We regard the use of innovative new technologies such as IOTA’s Tangle for applications in the mobility industry as an important step in establishing automated driving and other mobility services. The technology will gradually relieve the driver of tedious tasks such as payment, registration and data protection, thus enhancing the driving experience," is how Heiko Herchet, Head of trive.me, explains the significance of the project.