LIVEPlease describe the activation your organization seeks to launch.
NoTow will help Angelinos save nearly $150 million(govtech.com) in parking fines. Our application uses image recognition and a proprietary algorithm to parse text from signs and determine one's ability to park. Simultaneously, we proactively save the sign's rules and coordinates to make a comprehensive parking map of LA so one does not need to aimlessly seek allowable parking.
Which of the LIVE metrics will your activation impact?
Walk/bike/transit score
Will your proposal impact any other LA2050 goal categories?
LA is the healthiest place to CONNECT
In what areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?
Central LA
East LA
San Gabriel Valley
San Fernando Valley
South LA
Westside
South Bay
Antelope Valley
County of Los Angeles
City of Los Angeles
How will your activation mobilize Angelenos?
Create new tools or technologies for greater civic/political engagement
Describe in greater detail how your activation will make LA the best place to LIVE?
Our mobile application (app) helps users find and secure parking quickly by utilizing intelligent software to read parking signs and determine if users can park in a specific location on a residential or commercial street.
The benefits of this application are numerous. Firstly, it has the potential to drastically reduce the amount of time users need to spend on finding parking, which can in turn reduce traffic in a city already known for it's abundant traffic problems.
In addition, it will reduce the number of parking tickets issued to people throughout the city. This has the potential to make residents and commuters happier in their daily lives, and allow tourists and visitors to enjoy their visit in the city to a greater capacity. Time not spent looking for parking is time spent in local stores, restaurants and businesses. These effects have positive economic implications, but will also benefit the city of Los Angeles beyond monetary reasons. Our app's image recognition and text analysis will make life easier for non english speakers so they can park, knowing they will not suffer the burden of a ticket. Simply stated, it will make the notorious parking problems rampant throughout the city more manageable, thereby making the city a happier and more productive place to live.
How will your activation engage Angelenos to make LA the best place to LIVE
NoTow targets commuters driving in metropolitan areas with restricted parking marked by parking signs. We intend to insert ourselves as a tool for reminding commuters where they parked and for how long they are able to stay. Facebook advertising for will be our primary paid user acquisition and shareable viral content platform. We will use social media platforms such as twitter, instagram, and youtube to produce free viral content using the help of professional colleague in viral marketing.
Please explain how you will define and measure success for your activation.
In our eyes, success for this project is defined through its ability to make a meaningful and tangible impact on the state of parking in Los Angeles.
Because our activation is by nature highly technological, it should be relatively straightforward to measure success through the following mediums:
1) Acquisition of users and monitoring their daily activity (provided through iOS App Store and Android Play Store analytics).
2) Number of parking spots examined and ultimately committed to through the app.
3) Number of parking tickets reported through the app.
With the success of this app, we'd expect downloads and number of parking spots examined and committed to increase and a decrease in parking tickets reported.
Additionally, as we accumulate data for latitude/longitude coordinates pertaining to specific parking signs, our application will eventually be able to make specific map-based suggestions to users utilizing the app, even further decreasing number of tickets issued and the amount of time users spend looking for parking.
Where do you hope this activation or your organization will be in five years?
In five years, NoTow hopes to have 1 million monthly users across Los Angeles users. We hope reduce parking search time and prevent millions of dollars in avoidable fines. We also hope to augment our text parsing and rules engine with Machine learning (AI) capabilities to increase development speed for accounting for all possible sign rules.