20 April 2022 - Shanghai, China
Parkopedia, the global leader for connected vehicle services, has been named as the provider of the most accurate and complete parking data in China, according to market research specialists, Frost & Sullivan, who compared parking data from 21 of the country’s parking data providers to better understand the ecosystem of China's digital parking industry.
Demand for parking heavily outstrips supply in China, with just 80 million parking spaces available to accommodate more than 281 million registered vehicles, leaving automakers under pressure to provide drivers with accurate parking information. Parkopedia’s own 2021 driver survey, carried out in partnership with Zhongyan, found that the majority of drivers now expect automakers to provide them with accurate parking information as an essential part of their connected vehicle services. 77% of motorists surveyed also request real-time, dynamic parking information embedded in the vehicle's head unit when approaching a destination or on departure, which is only possible with accurate data, sourced from reliable and trustworthy data providers.
Frost & Sullivan’s Ground Truth Testing (GTT) exercise focused on parking data coverage and accuracy at almost 4,500 on-street locations, and more than 1,400 off-street parking lots, across 10 major cities in China. Frost & Sullivan benchmarked 21 parking data providers, which included data aggregators, parking operators and municipal smart parking services providers, by comparing static attributes such as name, address, prices, opening hours, number of spaces and the presence of EV chargers as well as dynamic data - which provides parking space availability.
GTT exposes the level of correctness and accuracy across both static and dynamic attributes by visiting multiple locations and comparing the information available from the data provider with the information available at the locations. Evaluating Point of Interest (POI) data is a complex process that requires planning, such as researching areas where parking is most in-demand and where drivers would benefit the most from a parking information service, the type of parking at the location such as on-street or off-street parking, and any weighting of attributes, such as factors that would have a high to low impact on customer satisfaction to give a consistent and fair evaluation between competing suppliers.
The exercise identified Parkopedia as the leading provider for completeness and accuracy of static data in all 10 cities in both off-street and on-street static data. Parkopedia was also found to be the only supplier to offer complete static data information, as well as providing static data for almost four times as many on-street parking locations as its nearest competitor. When comparing dynamic data, Parkopedia ranked 1st in all 10 cities for on-street, and in 8 for off-street parking.
Ding Xian, General Manager for Parkopedia in China, said: “At Parkopedia, we always strive to provide the highest standards of service quality, giving our customers a level of transparency, confidence and security in our solutions or data they are buying. Transparency is the reason why we encourage our business customers and prospects to conduct Ground Truth Testing to ensure they are able to truly understand what metrics and level of granularity are important to their business. Ultimately, greater transparency, standardisation of terminology, and agreed minimum standards, can only be positive for the industry, enabling more unbiased evaluations of suppliers, and delivering improved driver experiences.”
Andy Guo, Executive Director at Frost & Sullivan, added the following about the results: “The explosive growth of the number of vehicles has raised new requirements for smart parking solutions, which rely heavily on the performance of parking data. With innovative data collection technologies, Parkopedia takes the lead in the highly fragmented Chinese parking market with its sophisticated data collection processes that allow Parkopedia to deliver outstanding coverage and the highest accuracy.
"Parkopedia offers the most complete, detailed and accurate parking information and services, which are also their competitive advantages when compared with other parking data providers in China. Its sophisticated availability prediction method allows it to deliver parking data with an outstanding coverage rate and the highest accuracy. Parkopedia ranked 1st out of 10 providers in this thorough assessment.”