Finding a good parking spot in the city is a lot like finding a needle in a haystack. Luckily, you can now use the appropriately titled Haystack app to find a spot when you need to.

The idea for it came to Eric Meyer, a University of Rochester alumnus, at the tail end of 2013 when he finally got fed up with the limited parking available in his Baltimore neighborhood.

“I was tired of circling the block late at night searching for a spot,” he says. “After too many tickets, I thought there must be a more efficient way for drivers to park and exchange information with their neighbors.”

Seeing as how Americans already spend a whopping two hours on their mobile devices per day, it only makes sense that they’d like to use their smartphones or tablets in such a pragmatic way. Less of a service and more of a community, the free app allows both iOS and Android users to offer and parking tips.

If seeking a spot, “haystackers” are matched to appropriate spots based on their location and the length of their vehicles. If offering a spot (which users in the Haystack community tend to do when leaving), they indicate the parking spot’s location and type. They’re then paired with someone seeking a spot, and can communicate with each other to complete the exchange. The haystacker looking for a parking spot pays the user offering the spot a small fee, of which Haystack retains about 25%. The typical exchange costs about three dollars on average.

After launching last May, Maryland’s Daily Record named Meyer the 2014 Innovator of the Year. Haystack also won the Best New Web or Mobile Product award at Technical.ly Baltimore’s Innovation week.

With Haystack, Meyer joins the long ranks of notable alumni from the University of Rochester. The class of 2012 alumnus majored in political science from the local academic institution, which has fostered such great minds as Nobel laureate Masatoshi Koshiba, Tufts University President Nils Yngve Wessell, acclaimed drummer Steve Gadd, amongst many others.
But how many of them are going to be able to help you get a parking spot?