Version 1.0 : Coming soon!!!!

After all the information we laid our hands on, we were pretty sure we were on the right path and very close to the end. But alas, how amateur of us to think that way! In reality, we were not even close to achieving half of what we had originally planned to.

As they say, “A task well planned is half done.” And that is exactly where we were lacking. We were doing things, getting things done from others, getting data but all in vain, for we did not have a definite plan in mind. The information we got from the Government was way too vague, chaotic and disorganized for us and not in the context we needed. There was a lot of processing needed to be done from our end. We were moving ahead but we were really not sure if the motion was in the correct direction. After every accomplished task we were left wondering with the inevitable question “What next?” and wondering if the outcome was of any help or not. The main question bothering us was we had the data on paper but we had no clue how we were going to convert it into organized digital data.

That is also when the team was forced to take a hiatus from all the work since each of us had our college exams. And right after our exams there were incessant rains in Vadodara. It was as if the gods were against us getting any further. Thankfully, the rains stopped within a week and we could plan our much needed meeting with Mr. Rakesh Patel.

Tuesday, 9^th October, 2013 was the day we went to Ahmedabad for the meeting. It started with us briefing Mr. Rakesh with the progress we had made and showing him the data we had collected. He was happy with the progress we had made and showed us a video of a breakthrough idea in the field of parking implemented in Israel. Next, we told him about the turmoil in our minds regarding how to convert our data into digital data. Mr. Rakesh calmly listened to all our woes and after we were done he gave us a solution to all our problems. He showed us a new app he was developing and told us how it could be of great help to us with a few modifications. The mobile app could be used on a smart phone to record the geographical location right from latitude and longitude to plotting the location onto a map. He also gave us some quick pointers that we should keep in mind. He told us how we should approach any task by dividing it into three parts:

1. What?
2. Who?
3. How?

The main focus should be to come up with the answer to “What?” and the rest will follow. He also said that the biggest success mantra is “Focus, focus and focus!”

We finally sat down to segregate the data we had, came up with all the useful data and studied the traffic notifications in detail. We had a second meeting after we had worked with the notifications about the details we could include in version 1.0 of our app. At the end of the day we had a clear and focused work-plan with deadlines for each task. We came back home eager to resume work on our brainchild.

How the chaos ended!

After going through the information we got from Vadodara Police Department, we were in a state of confusion about what to do next. We had all the information we needed about on-street parking but we had reached a kind of dead-end when it came to off-street parking information. We had no idea who to go to for the off-street and the commercial buildings parking areas. That is when we thought, why don’t we go talk to our teachers in the Civil Engineering Department of our respective colleges. And I went and talked to Prof. Nipa Desai, Head Of Department, Civil Engineering Department, Babaria Institute Of Technology.

After giving her a basic idea of what Park: On The Go! aims and strives to do she was more than happy to help since, in her own words, “Traffic is a topic that really interests me.”

She further helped us get in touch with Prof. S. M. Dave, Associate Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Faculty Of Technology And Engineering, M. S. U., Vadodara.  Prof. S. M. Dave is currently pursuing his research on a topic related to Traffic and when we asked him if we could meet him once, he happily obliged!

The meeting started out, as usual, with the customary introduction of Park: On The Go! Prof. Dave told us that he did have a basic idea about it since he had already read about us in the newspapers. 😀 After we told him what information we required he completely took over from us. He talked with as such enthusiasm and glee. And we just knew that we had found somebody who would guide us flawlessly.

He explained to us how we could refer to the General Development Control Regulations (GDCR) published by Vadodara Urban Development Authority (VUDA) to understand the laws of how Parking is allocated in Commercial buildings. He taught us how to calculate the capacity of a Parking lot. He even told us that the information we are looking for would be with the Town Planning Department and how, whenever we approach them, we should be prepared on our side with a list of Buildings that we wanted the information for. He even gave his insights on what areas of the city we should start with that face acute parking problems.

He threw some light over the social benefits of organizing the parking sector. He explained the concept of “The High cost of Free parking”. He told us how he has been working on the topic of making parking a paid commodity in India and how it is the need of the hour. He explained, how the Government could use the revenue generated from the parking sector to better the public transport systems. This would encourage many people to stop using private vehicles and start using public transportation. This would in turn, help curb pollution and the misuse of fuel. After the discussion we truly realised how amateur our vision is in front of him.

(From left to right) Prof. S. M. Dave, Rishabh Shah, Hardik Patel and Smit Shah

The meeting ended with him giving us a lot of websites we could refer to and a great many points to ponder over.

We truly wish to convey our gratitude to Prof. Nipa Desai and Prof. S. M. Dave for their time and the valuable knowledge they shared with us. The world really needs teachers like them! 🙂

Treasure Unearthed!!

After the successful stint at VMSS and the plethora of information we got from there, a lot of doors opened for us. We started learning new things, the most important one being : Getting appointments from Government officials. Things really started to look up when finally we bagged an appointment with Mr. D. R. Patel, Additional Commissioner Of Police (Crime and Traffic), Vadodara. We were supposed to meet Mr. D. R. Patel on 22^nd August, 2013 at 12:00 noon.

Meeting Mr. D. R. Patel was a great experience. We explained our idea to him and got a good feedback from him. He further gave us a few suggestions about how and what we should do next. We sat there taking notes and just taking in every bit of information we got.

Smit with Mr. D. R. Patel (Additional Commissioner Of Police(Traffic and Crime, Vadodara)

Mr. D. R. Patel then directed us to Mr. Sajan Parmar, A.C.P. Traffic Branch, Vadodara. We explained our idea to him as well and that is when we struck “GOLD”. We got to know about many traffic bylaws and how the Government allots on-street parking slots from time to time, what factors are considered and much more. All this information was new to us and Mr. S. V. Parmar was really patient in explaining everything to us. We also came to know about the timely notifications the Government gives out about on-street parking.

Bhargav with Mr. S. V. Parmar (A.C.P. Traffic Branch, Vadodara)

We are really grateful to Mr. D. R. Patel and Mr. Sajan Parmar for their precious time and all the suggestions,feedback and help they provided us with.

We would also like to show our gratitude to Mr. H. G. Patel, Additional Commissioner Of Police, Ahmedabad for his help and insights on Park: On The Go!

@Vadodara Mahanagar Seva Sadan(VMSS)

After getting an affirmative response from Mr. Jaydeep Parmar, we went to VMSS for getting official details of parking zones. We met Mr R. M. Patel (Asst. Muni. Commissioner- Revenue). He briefed us regarding various departments and officers at VMSS.

We also met Mr C M Makwana (I/c. Dy. Municipal Commissioner (Adm.,North,East)).  He took out his precious time from the busy schedule for us & heard us with profound interest.  He guided us properly by providing us reference of traffic department.

In the traffic department, we met Mr. Bhupendrabhai, Mr. Mulchandbhai and Mr V K SIngal (Traffic Engineer).  We explained them our entire idea and they were truly impressed by the ideology and initiative has been taken by us. They gave us information about about all official government off-street parking places. Including maps, total capacity and problems.Our 22.22% of data mining phase is now done.

We whole heartedly Thank all the officers at VMSS for their incredible time and support.

Finally!! We got rays in dark tunnel…

Now @Vadodara

After listening to a lot of motivating things,planning and full of enthusiasm we came back to Vadodara. We started our really important discovery phase, The Data Mining Process .We started to get information from professors,officers, relatives and friends, and we got some good information.

On 17th august we talked to Mr Gopal Shah(The Ex. Town planner of Vadodara). Mr Shah gave us some really useful information about parking and guided us in a professional way to obtain further information on parking and we are really thankful to him.

On 18th august we met Mr Jaydeep Parmar(Town Planner of Vadodara and Nadiyad).He has done his masters in traffic and parking. Currently he is working on development of South Gujarat region(From river Mahisagar to Maharashtra border). He shared his knowledge with us about lot of useful things on parking and explained us the real parking and traffic situation in Vadodara. Mr Jaydeep Parmar explained us the basics of Parking and also taught us how to calculate official parking area in different buildings, complexes and multiplexes (FSI etc.). He referred us to some very informative books on parking.

He also helped us by giving the official rule book of Vadodara(General Development Control Regulations-2006). He gave us some good ideas to add more facilities(like showing most comfortable places to park during festivals) in our application. Last not the least, he gave us guidance in obtaining information of official No parking zones and special on street parking zones.

Mr. Parmar showed his willingness to help us by all means. He concluded the meeting by saying:”Traffic is very vast subject and it is really tough to research on it. But don’t lose your hope, you can achieve it, because we never know, good things can happen with us anytime.”

We wholeheartedly thank Mr. Parmar and Mr Shah for their help and support in process of developing this project and are very grateful to had an opportunity to meet them.

 

The Dawn!

The next few days after winning Startup 2020 and Rakesh Sir announcing at the event that he was interested in funding the project seemed like a roller-coaster ride. There was so much happening around us. The recognition from our respective colleges, the media coverage, the accolades, everything seemed so surreal. We had to keep pinching ourselves to remind ourselves that all this was REAL and not just a dream!

That is when Rakesh Sir got in touch with us again about the meeting that was bound to change us and the way we viewed things in an unprecedented way. So, a date and time was agreed upon: 13^th August 2013, 10:00 a.m. And team Engipreneurs started from Vadodara at sharp 6:20 a.m aboard Shanti Express. We reached the Space-O Technologies office in time and then started the meeting. It started with Rakesh Sir introducing the team to Mr. Atit Purani, co-founder and CTO Space-O Technologies, and Mr. Bhaval Patel, Delivery Head at Space-O Technologies. Then started a discussion wherein first of all we briefed Atit sir and Bhaval sir about our business idea. And then a myriad of topics were covered. We asked the veterans about what they expected from us and all our doubts were put to  rest by the satisfactory answers we got from them. The two main things they expected from us were:

1. Dedication
2. Commitment to the cause

We were told to work independently however well it suited us and turn to them whenever we needed any guidance or for any help. Proper planning was the key to get things right and we will learn more from failure than success were some of the tips we got. We were asked to make schedules and stick to them. The veterans explained to us how it was the need of the hour that somebody from the industry tried to think out-of-the-box and bridge the gap between what educational institutes provide and what the industry demands by promoting such startup business ideas and how they hoped others would follow the trend they were setting. They emphasised on innovative thinking or what they called “out-of-the-box-thinking” because only that will make us stand out amongst a crowd.
Then we shifted to the specifics of how we are going to go about bringing to life, Park: On The Go! We were told to start with Data Mining in the discovery phase and a few other suggestions about where we could lay our hands on the data we were looking for. And then we were left to ourselves to make a proper plan of how we were going to proceed with things. After almost 3 hours of brain-storming we came up with a plan with a proper timeline for the month of August. We zeroed-in on a particular area in Vadodara from where we’ll start the pilot project with. We narrated our plans to them, made a few changes and finally, after a hard day’s work we had something substantial in hand.
The meeting was concluded with a discussion on “Values” with Atit sir and Bhaval sir. And like Atit Sir said, “Focus on the Process and not the Product. Once the Process is good, the Product is bound to be good.” we are truly enjoying this process of learning and hope that the fruits it bears us are equally enjoyable!

How it began!!

We are a group of 8 college students, who participated in Nasscom Start-up 20-20 (baroda).

We began with a rough idea, Went through ups & downs, scraped it completely-TWICE!
But at the end we did have a clear picture of what we wanted to achieve.
We Presented a business model to solve the parking Problem with the help of Mentors (Senior Professionals). We won the competition!!

Also Mr. Rakesh Patel – Space-O-Tchnologies Sponsored our project with $5000. We are Grateful to him.

It is now time that we put the project to life.