That Eureka Moment – Anatomy of the Park-Kit Inventor - Tony Holland

Tony Holland had a colorful life and career before he became known as the inventor of Park-Kit, a combination parking guidance and lighting system that talks to drivers as they park. Tony became an electrician and machinist thanks to the Canadian Navy's Apprentice Program. His stint as an officer trainee at the University of British Columbia further honed these skills and sparked his entrepreneurial streak. While still at university, Tony teamed up with the strongest man in the world, Doug Hepburn, to invent and patent an exercise machine. After his spell in the Navy, Tony worked as a set designer/builder on two Robert Altman movies before moving on to art direction, screenwriting and film production. Tony then set up his own firm specializing in lighting design and electrical contracting before branching out to design discotheques, portable gold refineries and Ultraviolet water purification systems. As an inventor/entrepreneur, Tony was also the founding investor of Aim Safety, a publicly traded company with over 1000 employees, that produced a gas detector invention. He also established Premier Custom Lighting and Decor which has handled many prestigious lighting and decor projects over the past 20 years, where he was also inventing the Park-Kit system

Tony's eureka moment came when he was inspired to develop a combination parking guidance and lighting system when he saw the first stand-alone guidance system on a visit to the 3rd Street parking lot in Santa Monica, five years ago. Though the guidance idea was a brilliant one, Tony knew that adding lighting to parking guidance would be a huge leap forward. When he returned to Vancouver, Tony immediately hired a team of hardware and software engineers to design and patent a combined guidance and lighting system. This engineering team developed the first radio controlled prototype system in just two years. That system was installed in the three-story underground parking garage of Vancouver's main library with 350 guidance equipped lights. The system, however, involved attaching a sonar detector over each car and worked well but needed a huge amount of extra wiring and conduit. Hence, the team opted for a solution that would eliminate the need for extra wiring to make the invention more cost effective.

About three years into the project, Tony got the idea that cameras would work better as detection devices. To this end, the team worked with US-based Analog Devices, and a Chinese supplier of cameras for sourcing compatible USB cameras and lenses. They had to tackle many challenges as the six USB cameras needed for each vehicle were too slow and by the time they detected an empty space, the parking spot could be already taken. The research then turned to digital cameras which used a ribbon connector rather than a USB connector. This time round, the camera worked instantly though the software engineers needed another six months to design a suitable circuit board to allow all 6 cameras to rotate and scan the parking spaces in less than half a second. The digital cameras came with the added bonus that they cost only half as much as the USB cameras and had double the resolution.

To further fine tune the parking system so that it could accurately differentiate between empty and occupied parking spaces, the team set up a mobile lab in an underground garage that was fitted with the system. Park-Kit spent another 6 months analyzing and perfecting the detection software, using artificial intelligence to process 250,000 photos and perfect the master photo. The master image would be compared against each new photo via pattern recognition. The mobile lab used the same painstaking testing process to perfect the license plate reading program (LPR) to a 90% accuracy. This is the best that any LPR system has achieved, as some license plates are dirty, bent, covered with snow/ice or are obscured by bicycle racks.

Park-Kit also integrates the use of a radio frequency identification windshield sticker (RFID). RFID readers would read and identify these inexpensive stickers on vehicles and allow vehicles to automatically enter or exit from the garage. The stickers carry information about the driver, the make and color of the vehicle and its license plate number. This information is relayed to Google Cloud as drivers enter, park and leave a garage and it creates a file which records everything a driver does within the parking garage. These details include the length of a stay, the parking space occupied and the purchases made with a personal QR code.

Commenting on Park-Kit's unique features, Tony Holland, Founder of Park-Kit said, "Park-Kit offers a personal touch as it comes with a messaging service that sends drivers texts as they park and as they leave a garage. This messaging service first provides drivers with the location of their vehicles then, as they leave, a detailed receipt of their charges. This service makes the parking experience easier, more personal and completely touchless". Assigning unique QR codes to the cell phones of each Park-Kit member is another first. This feature allows members to use that code as a wallet, within a Park-Kit garage, to pay for electric vehicle charging, car detailing and bathroom access. These charges are listed on texted receipts that drivers receive as they exit a garage. The key advantages of Park-Kit is that it serves as a WiFi connected, combination lighting and a parking guidance system. It offers many more features than its competitors and costs less than half as much. Tony is finally satisfied that this invention is ready for market. It has taken 5 years for that eureka moment to gel.