ParkEasy: the social parking community.

It looks parking gets a lot of attention on my blog. This idea is all about helping others to find an easy parking spot. It works a bit like Uber but for future available (parking) space. When you are a member of the ParkEasy community,  you check in your car wherever you park and notify ParkEasy when you will approximately be leaving your parking spot again. Another member of the ParkEasy community that looks for a parking spot in a certain area at a particular time gets notifications of the available ParkEasy spot that become free within a 15 mins timeframe. He can give a heads up that he will be arriving to take your place via the app.

It’s by code of the ParkEasy community that you only give our your parking spot to other members of the community. When the parking spot changes, ParkEasy community members both get rewarded with some transaction points. With those transaction points, you raise your profile within the community. Being a member of ParkEasy will become payable over time and when it is, any valuable member of the community will have raised enough transaction points to prolong their membership for free. The new ones start with a small registration fee to start and gain transaction points.

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What if the Railways were run as a public/private club? #oipd

I have to admit I’m a real fan of traveling by train to work and back. I’m a forenzer who enjoys those 45 minutes to prepare some work, enjoy the Metro newspaper, catch up on my social media streams, watch people and make up stories around them or simply write this blogpost. Two days ago I took a new 1 year subscription and I was wondering why it did cost me so much. The service is quite often ok but not tremendous. Every now and than, I prefer going by car and not by train because of tight scheduled meetings in several cities. And I take holidays… I also believe i get my tickets inspected only around 30% of my rides.

What if the railways were run as a public/private club?

For the public part of service, everybody could come and get a transport ticket (not a guaranteed seat!) and take the train immediately to the destination of their choice.  The private part however is the subscription formula in which people pay a membership fee for using the services the railways offer (wifi, workspace, waiting rooms indoor, daily coffee …) In return the members of the Railways can reserve a guaranteed seat of the train of their likes and get the invoice of at the end of the month.

Although there are a lot of points to consider in this railway experience innovation, technology and infrastructure are the two main areas to invest in.

For instance; You can work with small screens in the seats or ceilings pointing out a seat is taken by mr(s) x or not at all. A small sensor in the seat notices whether a seat is taken and can be billed. The build-in mechanisme triggers a message to the member asking whether he has missed his train and would like to reserve a seat on the next one. Being a Railways member guarantees you your favorite spot at the bar while you can drink as much or as little as you like in benefitting from the extra services.

I would believe this is the vision Belgian Public Railways (@nmbs) and its new boss, Jo Cornu should aim for.
And I believe @kodel could help them with that!