Parking Operator of the Year: Q-Park

British Parking Awards 2024

The Parking Operator of the Year award recognises organisations that are creating a positive experience for motorists by providing easy-to-understand, non-confrontational and person-centric services.

Q-Park is one of Europe’s leading operators of parking infrastructure, with more than 706,000 parking spaces in over 3,600 commercial parking facilities across seven Western European countries. In the UK it operates in cities including London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Leeds and Manchester. The company mainly operates off-street parking spaces it owns, as well as parking spaces run under concessions and long-term leases from public and private landlords.

Q-Park takes the safety and security of customer vehicles seriously, implementing different measures to reduce crime ranging from regular patrols, extensive CCTV coverage, bright LED lighting and customer only entrances. As well as this, the parking bays at its sites are wider than the industry average, alleviating the risks of bumps and scratches.

Customers will sometimes need assistance. At Q-Park sites they can either speak to a parking host on-site who can assist with any queries that they may have. Having a physical presence also helps provide peace of mind to customers about the security of their vehicle. The operatives can assist the customer with most queries or can call the local response number to request that a parking host urgently attends to provide customer support.

Q-Park does not believe that simply having a parking host in the car park office 24/7 provides the best value to both customers and the wider business. Its preference is that the hosts are fully mobile within the facility undertaking cleaning tasks and also removing any person who should not be there.

Should a customer require assistance and are not able to locate a parking host, they can press the assistance button on any barrier, pay machine or help point. This will transfer them through to our 24/7 Customer Service Centre based in Leeds.

Q-Park is currently implementing technological innovations to create a seamless customer journey. A key initiative is PaSS, which is a combination of ANPR technology and PlatePay, a digital payment solution, meaning the use of a debit/credit card while at the parking facility is no longer required. Every customer who books parking receives a customer survey the day after their booking. On the question regarding whether they would pre-book parking again at non-PaSS sites the average score was 7.38 out of 10 whereas for PaSS sites it was 9.62 out of 10.

To cater for the transition to electric vehicles. Q-Park has signed a deal with Blink Charging for the installation of over 600 EV charging points across the country.

Q-Park is also at the forefront of the European parking industry when it comes to the creation of mobility hubs. It aims to develop parking facilities into vital instruments to help support urban accessibility, sustainability and liveability. In addition to car parking, Q-Park is now providing access for shared mobility schemes, electric vehicle charging, last mile delivery and retail space all within their safe and secure parking facilities.

The Park Lane Mobility Hub in Central London is a large car park underneath Hyde Park where commercial tenants include bp, DPD, Enterprise, UFODrive and ByBox.
Q-Park demonstrates that effective regulated and paid parking can make an economic and sustainable contribution to cities and society, and that a positive parking experience impacts how people enjoy their visit, journey, shopping, commute or residence.

Winner’s words

Adam Bidder (Q-Park): “We are thrilled to be once again acknowledged as the top parking operator in the UK. We’ve always believed in our excellence in this field, and it’s a tremendous honour to receive this recognition from our industry peers.”

The British Parking Awards

Created and presented by Parking Review magazine, the British Parking Awards are an independent competition. The awards recognise the leading examples of car park management, enforcement, design and team work.

The British Parking Awards 2024 ceremony took place at the Royal Lancaster London on 13 September.

To find out more about the competition and next year’s event check out the official website.
www.britishparkingawards.uk