Could this parking solution be the answer to Dublin city's traffic nightmare?

Park pnp gets a lot of interest from commuters coming into town between Monday and Friday Stock Image

Louise Kelly

A 22-year-old student who moved to Ireland a decade ago believes he has solved the problem of the Dublin's traffic nightmare.

Daniel Paul is the tech head behind Parkpnp - and his faith in the promising startup has lead to him dropping out of college to focus on the project full-time.

"With our platform, you can book a parking space before you drive into town or you can essentially rent out your own space while you're away or not using it," Mr Paul told independent.ie.

"It's a bit like airbnb for car parking. We see an opportunity for a smart city and cutting down traffic backlog while motorists circle and search for parking - simply by renting out spaces that would have remained idle."

Daniel Paul

Co-founder Gareth Flower (28) first stumbled across the idea for Parkpnp when he was late for a party in Ranelagh. While driving around looking for a space, he noticed that so many of the driveways were empty.

"He ended up knocking on the door of a house with an empty driveway and asked if he could park there for a few hours," Mr Paul said.

Parkpnp officially launched in January 2017 after receiving funding from Powerscourt Capital and Enterprise Ireland for the innovative concept.

Following a successful marketing campaign, which only began at the beginning of May, interest in the online marketplace has increased by over 400pc, primarily by users looking to solve their city parking woes.

Daniel Paul and

An important part of the firm's marketing approach was to ensure that it created a metric driven culture so the Parkpnp team spent a few months trialling all their different channels, testing results with differing levels of spend and fine-tuning conversions to ensure the best chance of success.

"We get a lot of interest from commuters coming into town between Monday and Friday; they are generally looking for parking spaces which are very secure as oppose to on street parking. Our app lets you choose what space you require from the map provided," said Mr Paul.

"Our short-term primary objective was always growing a loyal user base. We've always been confident that we can build revenue streams around our users. Our initial offering is obviously the transactional commission of each booking which is obviously sky-rocketing as the bookings flood in. Revenue for May surpassed the April figure in just over a week."

Parkpnp - which is currently working with home-owners, business-owners and carpark owners to ensure that they maximise the revenue from their parking spaces - has been recognised on a European level and is attracting considerable interest across the globe for its innovative approach.

"If we can continue to execute on our plan we expect to continue growth and capitalise on the massive opportunity present in the European parking market today and over the coming years," said Mr Paul.

"We are a team of 15 FTE currently and we have plans to grow to 25 in Q4 after launching into our next market. We have the global ambition to solve this global problem."