Smart Parking teams up with CamperMate – New Zealand’s most popular camping app!

CamperMate is one of New Zealand’s most popular free travel apps that takes the stress out of travelling by showing motorists nearby locations of everything they could want when travelling in a campervan from petrol stations and supermarkets to dump stations and now available parking spots! Launched in 2011, it now has over 240k downloads with around 16k tourists a day using the smartphone application.

CamperMate works with Councils across the country to provide parking information to those travelling around New Zealand. In July 2016 they began to work with Smart Parking and Wellington City Council in a partnership to bring better information about the availability of freedom camping parks to visitors.  

As part of the measures to manage Freedom Camping in the City, the Council has funded the installation of 64 parking sensors into Wellington’s very popular Freedom Camping sites at Evans Bay and Owhiro Bay.  CamperMate Founder Adam Hutchinson said: "We've seen a huge increase of tourists sourcing their information from their mobile device, from 12% in 2011 to now around 90%. This has represented a huge opportunity to reach tourists with the right information at the right time. Using real-time information is the ultimate for us, and this pilot highlights the benefit from industry collaboration."

Chris Roberts Chief Executive, Tourism Industry Aotearoa says: "It's important that tourism is at the forefront of adopting new technologies to not only assist with the management of freedom camping, but more importantly to improve the visitor experience".

Left to right: Amber Bill - Wellington City Council Open Space & Parks Manager; Rebecca Grainger - Smart Parking National Sales Manager and Adam Hutchinson - CamperMate Founder with a special thanks to the Jorge Espinar and Beatriz Alvarez from Madrid for letting us include their CamperVan.

The infrared sensors detect whether each individual parking bay is occupied and relays the information to CamperMate. The results are displayed on a live map allowing drivers to view a real-time picture of available spaces at the two camp sites.

Smart Parking CEO. Paul Gillespie said: “Along with the upcoming launch of smart parking technology throughout Wellington’s CBD we are excited to be working with Wellington City Council in implementing the technology at their Freedom Sites making it easier for campers to visit and enjoy some of the city’s tourist hotspots.”

Wellington City Council Open Space & Parks Manager, Amber Bill says “We hope that by providing better information we will help prevent people turning up when the areas are full, and instead encourage them to choose alternate camping destinations. This is a NZ first and we anticipate that it will be a helpful tool in our ongoing management of freedom camping, with benefits for locals and visitors alike.”

CamperMate

CamperMate is a free smartphone application available on iOS and Android devices in New Zealand and most recently Australia in English, German, Chinese and French languages.

Thousands of people use CamperMate every single day to find the locations of free, low cost and paid campsites, traveler submitted tips, free wifi, public toilets, supermarkets, petrol stations, dump stations, hostels, road alerts and much more.

For more information visit the CamperMate website here http://www.campermate.co.nz/

About Smart Parking

Formed in 1993, Smart Parking is now one of the largest and fastest-growing bay sensor technology companies in the world with SmartPark with deployments in capital cities across the globe including Canberra; London, Cardiff, and Cape Town, Costa Rica and Cape Town. 

Smart Parking specialises in some of the most technically innovative real-world solutions available within the market and continually leads the way in the development and application of these technologies, under the 'Smart' systems brand. They develop industry-leading technology and provide their clients with the very best parking management solutions.