ParkSwift

Inspiration

There are few things that invoke as much instant anxiety as the scramble to find parking in a busy city. The struggle to find a spot symbolizes and exacerbates all the worst manifestations of urban transportation: congestion, pollution, noise, road rage, and of course, outrageous prices. But with our simple, elegant, parking lot searcher, the modern driver can at long last find respite.

What it does

With the tap of the button, a comprehensive list of nearby parking spaces appears. With a simple gesture, individuals can effortlessly compare current parking rates, assess parking availability, and fine-tune their search by filtering for amenities such as EV-charging stations. Enjoy seamless integration with Google Maps, an intuitive user experience, and most of all, the peace of mind to get to the people and places that matter most. This is the future of urban parking. This is ParkSwift — bringing the free market to the pavement.

How we built it

Powered by the INRIX Off-Street Parking and Google Geocoding APIs, as well as a robust React/Next.js front-end, our app brings contemporary technologies to solve long-festering problems!

Challenges we ran into

The toughest part was figuring out how to query APIs securely without risking exposing our keys to the client. To address this, we created a special server endpoint as a proxy between our app and the external APIs.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The app works! It’s minimalistic while still yielding substantial social benefits.

What we learned

Calling and using APIs with JavaScript, as well as basic front-end development with React

What's next for ParkSwift

It’s time to expand to street side/parallel parking, employ real-time parking/traffic data to find the best empty spots, and warn the driver when they park in illegal places.

Built With

• google-geocoding
• inrix
• javascript
• next.js
• react
• tailwind