As the climate crisis escalates all industries need to evaluate their carbon footprint and quickly introduce measures to reduce their impact on the planet. The parking industry is no different, and in fact, with 30% congestion attributed to traffic searching for available parking, steps need to be taken to make the industry greener. In our recent Quick Question series, parking industry experts shared their solutions for achieving a greener future, from solar panels and EV chargers to parking guidance, ANPR technology, and energy-efficient lighting.
Alexandra Maillot, VP of Sales, USA and Canada Division of Survision
“Our population and needs are growing fast and so too are technologies, including green technologies. Parking can and should meet the growing green demand and reach the United States Cities Climate Commitment. It’s becoming popular to build eco-buildings in smart cities, to drive eco-vehicles and parking is next. Parking could use more renewable energies, more electric vehicle chargers, use less hardware and more software instead or use real-time occupancy data to avoid traffic. Or maybe parking could charge high-polluting vehicles more and use this extra income to invest in green projects. Our planet is changing so the parking industry should adapt to it now.”
Giel Leyssens, International Business Development Manager at Worldline
“In the world’s quest for ecologically responsible living, we see parking lots moving towards more and more mobility hubs. These hubs will connect different modes of transport like cars, trains, e-bikes, and buses to travel to cities. This creates opportunities for parking operators. They can become the orchestrator of all these green forms of transportation and take the lead as a mobility service provider. However, users will expect a seamless experience in paying for their tickets – the parking operator who can master this first will come out a winner.”
Frenky Prins, Investment Manager at Orange Investment Managers
“I believe green is possible in parking. In the last few years, steps have been taken to make multi-storey car parks self-sufficient, such as installing solar panels to supply the building and EV chargers. Mobility hubs on the outskirts of the city, with the last mile taking place by public transport, is becoming more popular and the future way of thinking about travel from point A to B. The materials used to construct multi-storey car parks and the big data in software solutions will help the parking industry achieve a more durable, sustainable, and greener parking industry.”
Jan-Erik Schmitt, VP of Sales at Carrida Technologies
“In our domain, license plate reading, green is achievable. With new technologies, you can use more and more edge devices for the full task of access control. These edge devices have very low power consumption, down to a couple of watts, being only a fraction of server-based solutions – this means they can be battery-driven and, for example, solar-powered. For the future I see more and more capabilities in edge-based solutions that can lower the all-over power consumption – this is one contribution to a green solution.”
Marc Boher, Chief Commercial Officer at Urbiotica
“Green is not only achievable for the parking industry, but the parking industry is actively participating in making cities greener. Citywide urban guidance systems, together with enforcement solutions, make it possible to tackle traffic congestion by providing real-time information about parking availability and drastically reduce fraud. It means less pollution for the city and a greener environment for citizens.”
Maarten Mijwaart, Business Developer at Tattile
“The parking industry can surely help support green initiatives. We can ensure smooth entrance and exit for traffic and guide vehicles to empty bays to prevent unnecessary pollution from search traffic and queuing. Parking guidance can also help optimize the utilization of parking spaces and save public space that way. We can also incentivize vehicles that are less harmful to the environment by offering premium services to them, such as better spots or pricing benefits. ANPR can support technology in all these examples.”
Joan Sarda, Marketing Manager at CIRCONTROL
“We strongly believe that green policies are especially suitable for the parking industry and that’s why we developed certain products. For example, with our lighting system, we can reuse up to 90% of the power consumed compared to old lighting. Moreover, with our server we can adjust the brightness of the light, reducing the consumption when there are no users in the parking. We also have a dynamic load management server that allows us to optimize the power needed by the whole system, and last but not least, we have developed a complete set of electric vehicle chargers, some of them specifically designed based on parking needs so yes, green parking is already a reality.”
Felix Zheng, General Manager at JIESHUN
“In my opinion green will be the trend in the future. Using ticketless controllers to replace the existing ticket dispenser for the parking system can reduce paper waste and adopting online cashless payment can reduce manpower and also the cost of the pay machine greatly. Meanwhile, according to research, almost 30% of traffic jams downtown are caused by searching for car parks. Smart parking can help drivers find available car parks much easier. That will greatly reduce traffic jams and reduce carbon emissions.”
