A Thiruvananthapuram-based start-up has come up with a digital car parking system for the Central Railway Station at Thampanoor, enabling customers to make payments for availing the facility through FASTag or other digital cards. With this, the existing system of manually issuing parking slips will slowly be done away with.
In the initial period, the automatic parking system through FASTag is enabled only for the car parking area, as two-wheelers are not provided FASTag as of now.
Anantham Online Private Limited, floated by former employees of various companies at Technopark, developed the system in collaboration with the Southern Railway. It helps customers enjoy trouble-free entry and exit. All that they have to ensure is that the vehicles have an active FASTag with sufficient balance. FASTag has been made mandatory by the Union government for vehicles at toll plazas.
The facility at the Central Railway Station can accommodate over 100 cars and 500 two-wheelers. Though the FASTag-based entry, exit and payment are offered to cars alone, UPI or card payments are available for other vehicles and non-FASTag users.
“Though we have been into the industry for quite some time now, as a start-up we always focused on defining digital transformation for enterprises. When it comes to domains like parking, the challenges are many. Convincing stakeholders at different levels, including officials, customers, and our partners, to bring professionalism and technology to a domain that is run purely on manpower was itself a herculean task,” said Prasanth P., founder director, Anantham Online.
Apart from FASTag and digital payments, the parking facility is set to offer other value-added services, locker facilities, and advanced parking slot reservation.
