One issue Koh Kai Wei has always had is finding parking for his motorbike.
So he decided to take things into his own hands and solve the problem by creating a motorcycle parking website.
The 35-year-old software engineer shared details about the platform in an Instagram post on April 25.
“Most parking apps don’t focus on motorcyclists. So, I decided to build this site to solve my own parking problems,” he said.
Kai Wei shared that as most of his data is crowdsourced, not all of it is accurate. He added that he will need to update it over time.
Prior to releasing the site to the public, Kai Wei tested it with his personal riding group.
After receiving positive feedback, he decided to launch it.
“Next time you go sia lah, where to park in Orchard Road sia, just head down to parking.eigenmoto.com,” he said.
Kai Wei urged other motorcyclists to give feedback so he can further improve the website.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DXjIx-0Dzvb/
In the comments, several motorcyclists thanked Kai Wei for coming up with the web app.
“Bro is the real hero,” said one netizen, while others called him a “legend”.
A netizen also said: “Was thinking about this idea while riding the other day and thank god someone did it. Much-needed, thank you so much!”
Others shared feedback about the website, such as errors when users try to update parking rates.
One user suggested that besides Google Maps, the web app should also support opening in Waze, while another said the web app should include safe pavement parking areas.
In an interview with AsiaOne, Kai Wei shared that he had created the website because finding parking for motorcycles is very difficult and he happened to have some free time on hand.
“Not every parking lot allows bikes too, and if you get stuck at the gantry it’s really troublesome. Most websites and apps cater to cars only or make motorcycles an afterthought so the user experience of finding lots for bikes is very bad,” he explained.
“I was extremely surprised that such a thing did not already exist for bikes.”
Kai Wei worked on the site across a few weekends, with the initial website taking around two weeks to make.
“I’ve been iterating on it since to build on both the user facing side and on the administrative side. I’ve got a pretty reasonable workflow now so it’s been kind of smooth sailing since I’ve released it,” he adds.
When creating the website, he wanted to keep it simple by making it do one thing very well, which was to search for motorcycle parking lots.
As it is hard to get good data on motorcycle parking, Kai Wei also created a reporting system for users to quickly point out issues in the data.
“Currently, this is the feature I am slowly improving on right now,” he said.
He first released the web app to his riding friends around the end of February, before officially launching it to the public on April 25.
As of now, the platform has attracted around 800 unique users over the past few days.
“However, I won’t have a clear picture of the statistics until the hype has worn down a bit,” he said.
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