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Live parking chances · Montréal

Parking: from luck to good odds.

Every street in the city has a rhythm. Parallel gives you the odds of finding a spot, for every street in Montréal, before you drive there.

See how it works
Download on the App Store Available October 2026

free to use · paid tier available · no account required

89 %

Chance of parking on Avenue Haig, parking allowed

Vehicle theft

Low

0 past 3 years

Nearby

Parking lots2 within 400 m
Paid posts6 nearby

Towing

Elevated

11 past 3 years

Collisions

Low

2 past 3 years

Ticket risk

~58 %

estimated

Chance if you arrive at

25%8:39p26%26%9:39p31%34%10:39p38%44%11:39p52%61%12:39a
Best window12:09a – 12:39a

Your chances, drawn on the street.

Same destination, same drive. Know what is waiting for you on the street when you get there, and you will not look back.

Any maps app
A maps app showing a 36 minute drive to Alphabet Cafe with a GO button
Parallel
Parallel showing the same destination with a 12 percent chance of parking, towing risk and better arrival times
Three steps, no learning curve

How you'll use it.

01

Open it

Your streets, coloured by their parking regulations: red where you can't park, amber where you need a permit, plain where you can.* No account, no setup.

02

See your chances

Type in where you're going and Parallel tells you how likely you are to find a spot when you arrive. Or just drive, and watch the map change around you, on your phone or on CarPlay.

03

Try the odds and park

Take a spot on a street where parking is allowed. Before you walk away, scan the sign on the pole and Parallel reads it back to you. It also remembers where you left the car.

* The city does not publish perfectly accurate locations for its street signs, and changes do not always reach the app the same day. The sign on the pole is what the parking officer reads, so it always wins.

Inside the app

Thirteen features to the same question.

Parallel is free to use, and the paid version helps us keep it that way. Those features carry a Parallel Unlimited Feature tag.

The Parallel map with a percentage on every street: 62 % where you stand, 47 % on the cross street, 0 % on the block beyond
Streets highlighted red where parking is prohibited and yellow where a permit is needed, with fire hydrants marked
The Can I park here? sheet, answering for the north-west and south-east sides of Avenue Pierre-De CoubertinThe street card for Avenue Haig: 81 % chance of parking, theft and towing risk, and the posted signs
Scan the pole with the camera, Parallel on iPhone
The Parallel map with a sign-pole marker plotted along every street, each carrying the rules posted on it
Parking forecast, Parallel on iPhone
The Saved places sheet in Parallel, each place showing its current parking odds

01

Your chances, street by street

Every street shows a number: your chance of finding a spot there right now. Red means no chance, green means a good one, and the colours in between fill the gap, so you can read a whole route at a glance.

62 %High chance 48 %50 / 50 0 %Zero chance
  • A clear percentage for every street, not just a colour
  • Red means no chance, green means a good one, amber sits in between
  • Fire hydrants marked on the map, so you don’t park across one
  • Tap any street to see the number and the rule behind it

The circle on the map is a photograph of that same street, taken minutes after the reading.

02

The rules, painted on the street

Parallel highlights only what stands in your way: streets where parking is prohibited, streets that need a permit, the fire hydrants you cannot park across, and the bus stops where stopping is prohibited. It is on by default, so the map tells you where not to bother before you slow down.

No parking Permit only Fire hydrant Bus stop
  • Red for prohibited, yellow for permit-only, nothing where neither applies
  • Drawn along both sides of the street, separately

03

Turn the clock forward

Drag the time slider and the whole map re-colours for that moment. The block that's legal when you park is not always legal when you come back, and this is the screen that keeps the ticket off the windshield.

  • Preview any hour up to a day ahead
  • The rules on the signs are checked for that future hour too, not just how busy it is
  • One tap on "Now" to come back

04

Paid poles, and whether they are taken

Paid parking spots, right on the map, each showing the chance it is free. When free street parking is full, the paid spot two streets over often is not, and you can see that before doing another lap.

Likely free Coin flip No chance Acquiring status
  • Green means a good chance the spot is free, amber is about 50 / 50, red means don’t bother
  • Location sourced from the Agence de mobilité durable de Montréal
  • Shown next to the free-street colours, so you can weigh a paid spot now against a free one later

05

Can I park here?

One tap on the map and Parallel answers for the exact spot you're standing in: both sides of the street, separately, because in Montréal they rarely agree. Every panel on the pole is decoded into one plain sentence, in the language you read.

  • Follows your position, so the blue dot is you
  • Each side of the street gets its own answer
  • Every posted sign listed underneath, original French text included
  • How often cars are towed from this block, how often they are broken into, and how often something is hit here, so leaving it there is a decision rather than a guess

06

The P answers before you read anything

One symbol under your thumb, coloured for the exact spot you are on: green when parking is allowed, amber when it is restricted, red when it is prohibited. It changes colour as you move and as the time changes, so checking takes a glance, not a paragraph.

PAllowed PRestricted PProhibited
  • Green, amber or red for the spot you are standing on
  • Changes colour as you move and as the posted hours change
  • The rule spelled out underneath, when you want the detail

07

Scan the pole with the camera

When a pole carries four panels stacked in two languages, point the camera at all of it. Parallel reads the whole stack on the device and turns it into a yes or a no, using the same brain that colours the map.

  • Reads automatically once the camera is steady
  • Handles French, English and mixed poles
  • Optional second reading with AI: off if you prefer nothing leaves the phone

08

Know if enforcement is nearby

Drivers report an enforcement car when they see one, and everyone within a few kilometres sees it for the next 45 minutes. One glance tells you whether the block is calm, worth watching, or being checked right now.

  • Green when nothing has been reported, amber when a car was seen nearby in the last 45 minutes, red when one was seen within 1.5 km in the last 15
  • Reports are anonymous: no account, no name, no exact car, and the spot is rounded to the block
  • One tap to report, and it expires on its own so old sightings never mislead anyone

09

Parallel Unlimited Feature

Every sign pole on the street, mapped

The poles sit on the map where they actually stand, each one carrying the rules posted on it. You read the whole street from the car instead of walking pole to pole to work out where a restriction starts and where it ends.

  • Every pole on screen, with the rules posted on it
  • See where a restriction begins and ends without walking it
  • Pay stations and garages appear on the same map
  • Touch any street to pull up its own information

10

Parallel Unlimited Feature

The whole neighbourhood, in colour

Zoom out as far as you like and the whole neighbourhood is painted with your chances right now. You see a wall of red three blocks ahead and know parking there will be hard, early enough to pick another street or aim for the green pocket two blocks over. The free app keeps you around where you are; Unlimited takes the leash off.

  • Pinch out to a whole borough or drag across the island, with no limit on how far you go
  • Each side of every street gets its own colour, because the two sides can differ
  • A colour view of the whole area, so a hard neighbourhood is obvious before you enter it
  • Readable at a glance from the driver’s seat, and while you circle your saved car stays on screen

11

Parallel Unlimited Feature

Parking forecast

How the city fills up, hour by hour, next to the pattern for your own neighbourhood. Home streets fill at night and empty at midday; shopping streets do the opposite, and knowing which one you're heading into is most of the decision.

  • Where the city is heading over the next few hours
  • Home streets and shopping streets, charted side by side
  • Based on how streets usually fill up, plus live traffic

12

Parallel Unlimited Feature

Your favourite places, already checked

Home, work, the sushi place, the rink. Save the addresses you drive to and Parallel keeps a live number for each one, so before you put a coat on you already know whether tonight is a park-out-front night or a walk-two-blocks night.

  • A live chance for every saved place, updated as the hours pass
  • Name them what you actually call them, with your own icon
  • Tap one to open it on the map, with its rules and the best time to arrive

13

Parallel Unlimited Feature

Map layers

Make the map yours. Everything the street is hiding sits on its own switch: pay stations, construction, lots, sign poles, EV chargers, speed and red-light cameras, vehicle theft areas, park & ride. You build the view you actually need and hide the rest. A cyclist, a delivery driver and someone parking outside their own house all want a different map; Parallel remembers whichever one you set.

  • Every layer independent, so you switch on only what matters to you
  • Focused modes: just-freed spots, active street spots, or restricted streets only
  • Map, satellite or hybrid, and your choices are remembered next time

Parallel Unlimited Feature

Built for the last two minutes of the drive.

On CarPlay your chances ride under the turn directions: a percentage on every street, the rule in the corner, one dial for the street you're on.

Navigating: 320 m to the turn, 27 % on the block aheadApple Maps · CarPlay
Permit zone, 54 % where you stand
No parking where you stand, 73 % nearby
The Parallel Method

No guesswork.

Ten years of work and two patents sit under the map: an engine that knows every block in the city. It doesn't guess and it doesn't promise. It estimates, carefully and honestly.

How detailedEach side of each street, hour by hour
How currentUpdated around the clock
Where it worksMontréal, borough by borough
What we promiseNone, just good odds

Available in November 2026 for pre-order

Never take your eyes off your vehicle.

The Parallel Parking Token is a slim smart token you buy once and leave in the car. It reports only to the Parallel app, so you can keep an eye on your car if something happens to it.

  • The token is yours forever after one purchase. Live monitoring is a monthly fee, which covers the wireless connection it needs to report in
  • No separate app and no account: the token appears inside Parallel
  • Slides into the glovebox or under a seat, nothing to wire in

Pricing to be announced.

Moved without you

If the car leaves the spot you parked it in, the app says so, with where it went and when.

Started without you

The engine turning over when you are not in the driver seat is worth knowing about immediately.

Towed

The most expensive thing that can happen to a parked car in this city, and the one you usually find out about last.

Where you left it

Open the app and see the car where you parked it. No wondering whether it is still there, and no wandering the block trying to remember which street you took.

Anonymous by design

The token belongs to nobody until you scan it.

  • Not tied to your name, your car or your phone: even if stolen or misplaced, there is nothing in the token that identifies any of them
  • Every token carries its own QR code, and only the person who scans it can monitor it
  • One owner, one place: only a physical scan claims a token, and one already being monitored cannot be added anywhere else
  • If the Parallel app on your phone notices a token travelling with you that you never added, it tells you
  • No trip history: what the token reports lives on your phone only
  • Unpair it and it goes silent at once, so selling the car or passing it on leaks nothing

Certified

FCC United States
CE European Union
IC Canada
WEEE Recycling
REACH Substances
RoHS Materials

The token is certified for sale and radio use in Canada, the United States and the European Union, and meets the RoHS, REACH and WEEE requirements for materials and recycling.

Coming Soon

An API for everyone who parks for a living.

The odds behind the app are one endpoint away. Ask for a street, a coordinate or a whole borough, at any hour, and get back the same numbers the map is painted with.

Delivery and courier fleets

Route to the door with the best chance of a legal stop, and stop paying for the tickets your drivers take on faith.

Trades and home services

A plumber with a van needs a spot for two hours, not two minutes. Book the appointment window where one actually exists.

Navigation and mobility apps

Turn-by-turn ends at the address. Add the part after it, so your users know where the car goes.

Cities and researchers

How full each side of each street gets, hour by hour.

The honest answers.

Is this AI?

The numbers are not. The odds come from real, live data, recomputed around the clock, not generated or guessed.

There is AI in the app, and it sits in one place: helping you make sense of what's already there. Reading the stack of signs on a pole and turning it into one plain answer, for instance. It explains the data. It never produces the odds.

How does Parallel actually know the odds?

That part we keep. What we will tell you: nothing invented, just an honest number, recalculated constantly for every block in the city.

Where does the city parking regulations and on-street paid parking data come from?

Montréal publishes its street-sign and parking-regulation data openly, as does the Agence de mobilité durable for on-street parking. That information is free and it belongs to everyone, and Parallel will never charge you for it.

Does it cover paid, residential and business zones?

Yes, all of them. Metered spots, residential permit zones, business zones: if a rule is posted on the pole, Parallel already knows it.

What's the difference between the odds and the parking rules?

They're two different things working together. The odds tell you where you're most likely to find a spot right now. The on-street rules tell you whether it's actually legal to park there, so you don't end up with a ticket.

How reliable are the posted rules?

We pull rule data directly from the city. In practice it isn't always complete or current, but we include it anyway, because knowing where you're legally allowed to park matters. Always glance at the actual signs before you walk away.

Does it work during winter and snow removal?

Yes, winter was built in from day one. Snow bans, street cleaning times and permit zones all change your chances the moment the rules do.

Is my location tracked or stored?

No. Parallel uses your location only while the app is open, and it's never linked back to you. See the privacy policy for the full details.

Is the app free, and if so why is there a paid plan?

It's free. Parking belongs to everyone, and the core experience always will be: no account, no paywall for the core experience.

There's an unlimited plan because cloud and server costs are not free. We recompute every block in the city around the clock, and that runs on machines we have to pay for, plus the map data, the storage and the bandwidth behind every screen you open. We could have covered it with ads or by selling data. We'd rather not. So the plan exists for people who want to support the work, and those subscriptions are what keeps Parallel free for everyone who can't pay for it.

So what exactly is Parallel Unlimited?

It's the paid plan, and it covers the features marked Parallel Unlimited Feature above: the live odds painted across every block in the city, the parking forecast, your saved places with a live number against each one, the customisable map layers, and the odds on CarPlay while you drive. It also unlocks zooming the map out past your immediate surroundings, so you can read a whole neighbourhood at once instead of the block you're on.

Everything else stays free: asking whether you can park where you're standing, reading a sign with the camera, previewing a future hour, and dropping a pin on where you left the car. Unlimited is for people who want the whole city at a glance.

Stop circling the block.

Montréal first, borough by borough. On the App Store in October 2026.

Download on the App Store Available October 2026

Get in touch

Say hello

Bug reports, ideas, or nothing in particular.

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