Quality in parking
Q-Park stands for ‘Quality in parking’. This fundamental choice for quality forms the core of economic value and our corporate social responsibility.
With our parking facilities and associated services for our parking customers, Q-Park wants to be an integral part of the mobility chain and of making freedom of movement more sustainable.
Regulated and paid parking, preferably in clean and safe parking facilities, offer an answer to current and future challenges posed by the urban environment. It is on these topics that we initiate dialogue with local authorities and other stakeholders.
Our vision on paid parking implies that we not only add financial value; with our activities, we also add societal value for a multitude of stakeholders.
We focus on the areas where we and our stakeholders believe we can have the biggest impact. These are underpinned by our values and behaviours.
No such thing as free parking
The user, the purpose partner, or the local community pays for the parking facilities which are essential to an attractive, accessible and viable city. But it is the shops, cafés and restaurants, culture, nightlife, centres of education and good hospitals that attract people.
And people are prepared to pay for convenience, for parking near their destination.
However, some cities consider or have already implemented free parking, and are therefore granting a subsidy, but this is neither a fair nor a sustainable solution.
More about this in our Vision Paper; No such thing as free parking.
Value creation
We create value through our portfolio of parking facilities at key locations. We offer public and private landlords a range of contract types and value propositions supported by our unique digital platform and our capacity, revenue and pricing optimisation functionality.
We contribute to societal value with our parking products: they improve the quality of life in urban areas and help reduce air pollution generated by traffic cruising for a place to park. We enhance our employees' job satisfaction and their competences by providing relevant training.
And for the parking customer, we add value by providing functional products and services and by involving them in our activities.
Contribution to quality of life
Q-Park wants to grow in cities with attractive market dynamics and sees good opportunities for this strategy. Urbanisation is continuing: population is declining fast in rural areas. This affects the number of passenger cars and the demand for parking spaces, both of which will continue to grow in large cities.
This drift to urban areas coincides with the trend towards increasingly autonomous and more environmentally friendly cars. One of the accompanying challenges for municipalities is to maintain a liveable city.
We work together with urban planners to create parking solutions that integrate in the mobility chain, and thus improve the quality of life for all stakeholders.
Innovation
ICT plays a crucial role in standardisation as well as enabling a flexible response to in-market requirements. Development is ongoing and we are continually improving and expanding the functionality of our systems.
ICT is a true enabler for our future development and implementation of new and innovative services for landlords, partners and customers.
We are already reaping the benefits of our ICT developments. Our proprietary system and landlord portal enable us to facilitate the customer’s journey, in both the virtual and physical sense, from the comfort of the customer's home to their final destination.
Our back-office operations run on a profound digital infrastructure which seamlessly integrates with our front-office – our websites and parking facilities – where purpose partners and customers can interact.
For example, to find parking solutions online, order value cards or a season ticket, or pre-book a parking space.
Customer satisfaction
At Q-Park we want our customers to be satisfied with the facility where they park and with the services we provide. We want them to feel safe and secure in a clean and efficiently run car park.
Which is why we participate in projects to raise awareness about theft from cars. Read more (click here) in the EPA Award 2017 section.
We also undertake innovative projects to make entering and exiting from car parks easier, such as our cashless and contactless payments project, which is fast becoming an industry standard. Read more (click here) in the EPA Award 2017 section.
We are also available to our customers 24/7 via our Parking Hosts, web care and control room. We listen to feedback and will continue to make improvements in our services to promote customer satisfaction.
Our employees
Q-Park recognises that our goals can be met only with the dedicated input of committed and well-trained employees who share our passion for quality and customer service. We invest heavily in induction training and the continuous development of our people.
Our customers
One million motorists use our parking facilities every day. With the cash flows we generate from this, we can continue to invest in future-focused parking solutions that add value for our public & private landlords and customers.
We identify two groups of customers: motorists who come to park, and purpose partners who offer parking as part of their own service offering, such as theatres, shopping centres, universities, hospitals, as well as fleet owners.
Our activities
A large proportion of our revenue comes from single parking transactions, our short-term parking customers. About one fifth comes from multiple parking transactions, our season ticket holders.
Our parking services mainly consist of providing parking spaces in purpose-built parking facilities or in off-street car parks. This can be pay-on-exit parking behind barriers, or parking paid by means of Pay & Display parking tickets, or via a parking service app. We also offer customers the opportunity to pre-book a parking space.
In addition, we offer services such as monitoring compliance to parking regulations applicable on street and on private property. For public & private landlords, we are happy to operate their parking facility, and because of our scale, we can do this efficiently and effectively.