Functional quality

24/7 Service

Most Q-Park parking facilities are open 24/7 for motorists to park and retrieve their car.

That's why we offer an international help desk to motorists that is available 24/7. The QCR gives customers instant access to multi-lingual Parking Hosts in a control room centrally operated by Q-Park. They provide help and support with queries relating to the payment system or to accessing or exiting the parking facility.

The QCR is in contact with Parking Hosts and Mobile Teams in the vicinity of the parking facility. If a customer needs assistance that cannot be given remotely, the QCR will dispatch a Parking Host to assist at the location itself. For mechanical problems, the service department and service technicians can be called in to help.

Results

In total we have 3,425 parking facilities offering 24/7 services.

Onsite services

Onsite services

Our aim is to foster mobility and enable access to essential urban functions in conjunction with sustainability concerns. Each of our parking facilities provides a number of onsite services. These are listed on the parking facility's website page so customers know in advance what services they can expect to find.

From our recurring customer satisfaction surveys we know that customers value the presence of AEDs. The AEDs should be located at a logical, secure and accessible place so they can be used by trained volunteers or medical personnel when needed.

Our customers greatly appreciate toilets being available in or near our parking facilities. Toilets are present in the car park or there is clear signage directing people to the nearest toilets, for example in shopping centres.

Customers who drive electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids like to recharge their vehicle while parking. We support the use of more sustainable passenger cars by providing charging stations for electric and hybrid cars at many of our facilities. To help these customers plan their trip we indicate on our website, per parking facility, whether e-charging stations are present.

Another highly appreciated service is the presence of jump leads. The Parking Host or mobile service team has access to jump leads and are available to help customers who find themselves with a flat battery. If the Parking Host is not on site, customers can call the QCR who will dispatch a Q-Parker to assist.

The QCR is also available to help customers with problems at the payment machine or access and exit barriers. Naturally, the QCR is available 24/7 and all our QCR Parking Hosts speak two or more languages so we can always help customers in their first or second language.

Young people, particularly those who live in large cities, have less need for a car, particularly when there are sufficient alternatives such as good public transport or cycling routes. Yet some choose to become a member of a car sharing scheme that give them the mobility freedom without the hassle of car ownership. We therefore have an increasing number of parking facilities in major cities that offer spaces to car sharing schemes. Spaces for shared cars are designated with this icon.

We want to play a role in ensuring sustainable freedom of movement and mobility options for citizens, which is why we offer parking facilities for cars and bicycles at public transport nodes. For this, we seek active cooperation with local authorities. Integrated mobility issues are becoming more important to municipalities. Their primary concern is how to improve accessibility and, at the same time, reduce congestion and emissions.

Integrated off-street parking solutions with public transport and bicycle parking provide answers in the short and longer terms. Our proximity to alternative mobility options has increased further, and we incorporate bicycle parking in our new build parking schemes, such as Bruul in Mechelen and Handelsbeurs in Antwerp.

Our owned and long-leased parking facilities provide information about alternative mobility options. We continue to seek and provide relevant mobility information to our customers.

The number of owned or long-leased parking facilities where the parking tariff is adjusted according to supply and demand continues to increase. In the near future we expect this number to rise further when more parking facilities are connected and integrated with our back-office-calculation (BOC) system which makes it possible to offer parking tariffs for different needs, and on different days at varying times.

• In the Netherlands differentiated parking tariff strategies were introduced at several parking facilities to better control supply and demand, mainly differentiating week and weekend tariffs.

• Germany and Belgium have also introduced new schemes.

• The UK and Ireland work with special evening tariffs.

Results

We started collecting onsite services information per parking facility in our new back-office systems in 2018 and not all countries have registered the onsite services yet, making it less useful to show the results per specific service. This will be followed-up in 2019.

What we do have is 1,612 parking facilities offering a variety of onsite services which can be reviewed online.