Member Article

?Appy Days? for motorists with new parking app

The age-old dilemma of trying to find your vehicle when parking in unfamiliar places or multi-storey car parks is now a thing of the past thanks to a Coventry innovation specialist.

RDM Telematics, which supplies cutting-edge hardware and software solutions to the automotive sector, has developed and successfully launched its first ever App and confused motorists are already snapping it up.

Nearly 1000 copies of ‘Park and Find’ have been purchased since it was uploaded to the Apple Store, with the Binley Industrial Estate firm hoping this initial surge will provide a platform for three new ventures into the world of downloads.

“In a nutshell, our App helps the user to find their vehicle when parking in unfamiliar car parks by allowing them to record its location through both GPS and by taking a picture,” explained Dr Richard Fairchild, head of RDM Telematics.

“This is particularly useful if you are in a foreign city or at a massive venue when everything looks the same and there could be thousands of spaces…airports, shopping centres and theme parks spring readily to mind. We’ve all been in that situation.”

He continued: “There’s a lot of hidden gems built into ‘Park and Find’ too, including setting your own reminder for when payment is expiring, a notes section for easy reminders and camera facility to automatically record any damage that might have occurred.

“Better still, the ‘Find my Car’ button takes you to a selection of maps, which will create a walking route direct to your vehicle.”

‘Park and Find’, which has a five star rating on the Apple Store, was originally 69p to download, but for the next two weeks will be free of charge in order to build the user base even more.

RDM has used this first inroad into this sector as a test-bed for developing new ideas and ironing out any glitches. Its focus now is on developing three ‘live’ projects, including a new App that captures electric vehicle data and displays the information on the iPad to help determine driving behavior.

“We can’t say too much about this concept, but it really brings together our core telematics technology and marries it with our emerging expertise in mobile App development,” added Richard.

“This is the way both the consumer and industry are going and we want to position ourselves to be at the forefront of the new innovations.”

RDM Telematics supply a suite of solutions for vehicle tracking, data logging, remote diagnostics, job dispatch, asset and fleet management.

Its team of industry experts takes new technology and applies it to petrol, diesel and LPG vehicles, with increasing demand coming from niche and electric/hybrid manufacturers.

The firm forms one part of the thriving RDM Group, which has been providing world class products and engineering services to customers for more than 20 years.

The telematics division is joined by businesses specialising in assisted healthcare products and automotive solutions.

For further information, please visit www.rdmgroup.co.uk/telematics or contact 02476 635818.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .