Many big cities in China including Beijing are stuck in traffic problems — cars fill the streets butthere are limited parking places to accommodate them.

QTParking Technology, established in March, 2015, is a startup company that focuses on smart parking development through the Internet of Things.

Qin Yue, founder of Qingting, is at work. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In October, 2015, just a few months after the establishment of the company, seven national ministries and commissions of China including the National Development and Reform Commission jointly published a guide on the construction of urban parking facilities in which the digitalization of parking information was referenced.

The firm focuses on integrating IT, OT and smart devices through the Internet of Things (IoT), and build an IoT cloud platform to help traffic management departments or commercial parking lots to solve their parking problems.

William Qin, founder of the startup, said unlike many companies in Internet of Things fields which concentrate on developing sensors and smart wearable applications, QTParking offers a cloud-based integration service to link all those sensors and applications with a platform to deliver their service.

"Parking resources are yet to be fully utilized, and what QTParkingdoes is to digitalize information about these unused spaces to support the transportation management department and commercial parking lots," Qin said.

Tina Zhen, co-founder of Qingting, poses after a conference. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Tina Zhen, co-founder of the company, said that the company has launched a pilot project with the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Commission, an intelligent transportation cloud platform, and had set up cloud integration services in 20 parking lots in the city, which makes use of the parking spaces more efficient.

The firm has also cooperated with some shopping centers and business districts including Tai Koo Li at Sanlitun — one of the most fashionable landmarks in Beijing — and Phoenix Galleria — an experiential shopping center.

People are linked with a record of their shopping in the mall and canuse their shopping scores to offset the parking bills.

In other words, the company connects all the parking devices such as access gate, space tracking devices and plate scanner with proprietary WeChat service accounts of the shopping centers to turn visitors of the parking lot into frequent shoppers at the mall.

QTParking also helps transportation departments with dynamic pricing and volume analysis, which enables traffic managers to develop better policies for urban traffic conditions.

The Qingting team tackles an urgent program. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Zhen suggested that the core technology of QTParking does not replace but upgrades existing system and infrastructure.

"Only when most of the infrastructure is digitalized can smart transportation be fully market-oriented," Zhen added."We are here to help traditional manufacturers who focus on smart transportation to transition into the Internet of Things age."