Students won’t have to worry about sprinting out the door to beat a nearly expired parking meter any longer — HonkMobile has parked itself comfortably at the Woodroffe campus.
The phone app, which launched at Algonquin at the beginning of the fall semester, allows users to find available parking spaces on a detailed map as well as parking rates from their fingertips.
HonkMobile also allows users to pay for their parking using a credit card, meaning a more convenient and innovative way for students and visitors to pay without leaving the comfort of their seats.
“I think it was an incredible idea for Algonquin to start using this app, paying is a thousand times easier,” said child and youth care student Makennah Monette.
Monette first downloaded the app on AC Day 1 when she was running late for class, annoyed that the change machine was not working on the parking meter. In a rush, she took a picture of the new HonkMobile signs next to the parking meters and hurried off to class and from there she followed the steps to signing up on the app and paid for her parking without hassle.
“It’s also really awesome if I need to stay at the college longer than I planned,” said Monette. “It’s kind of a relief to not have to rush outside anymore.”
Anyone can use the app anywhere and is not limited to the college. Staff won’t have to worry about forgetting to pay at the meter, either.
“The whole idea was to revolutionize the way parking was transacted,” said Michael Back, CEO of HonkMobile. “It absolutely made sense to go after the student market because students are the early adopters of technology.” Back, who appeared on CBC’s Dragons’ Den in 2014 for this invention, is thrilled to hear the student market is making use of his app.
“We wanted to make life easier for students,” said Back.
“Colleges are like small cities, and this is just a new type of interaction to make things simpler.”