How a Tel Aviv Developer Built CheaPark to Solve Urban Parking Nightmares
Ido Bari, a 27-year-old developer in Tel Aviv, created CheaPark, a free real-time parking comparison app designed to help motorists find the best rates and availability.
Finding parking in Tel Aviv has long been a frustrating daily challenge for residents and visitors alike. Between endless queues, fluctuating hourly rates, and unpredictable costs, motorists often find themselves paying exorbitant fees for a few hours in the city. To solve this everyday headache, a 27-year-side software developer named Ido Bari created CheaPark, a free app designed to map and compare parking options in real time.
Bari, who works at an artificial intelligence startup and lives in central Tel Aviv, originally built the app out of personal necessity. When he started dating his partner, Lia, finding parking near his apartment turned into a complex puzzle. The couple had to manually cross-reference data from multiple parking lot websites, factoring in varying arrival times, hourly rates, municipal discounts for residents, and live availability.
Building the App with AI and Precision
Using AI coding tools, Bari developed CheaPark over the course of several weeks, with Lia acting as the primary product tester. The app functions similarly to a flight search engine: users input their destination, maximum walking distance, arrival time, and planned duration of stay, alongside any applicable discounts such as resident or student rates. The app then scans available lots and presents a live-updated list ranked by price, distance, and vacancy status.
The idea was to minimize nasty surprises, Bari explained. You often think parking will cost 20 to 30 shekels, and suddenly you are billed 90 shekels for three hours without understanding why. I wanted the calculations to be as accurate as possible.
Viral Growth and Future Expansion
Initially uploaded to the Apple App Store simply to share with friends, the app quickly spread through word of mouth. Within weeks, CheaPark accumulated over 1,200 downloads and cracked the top 10 navigation apps on iOS, eventually expanding its coverage beyond Tel Aviv to Herzliya and Jerusalem. An Android version is currently in development.
Despite its growing popularity, Bari views the project as a passion side-job and does not currently plan to introduce fees or advertisements. As he continues to gather user feedback, he aims to scale the platform further, helping drivers across more urban centers navigate parking stress with complete transparency.
