Changing of the Guard

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. – Edmund Burke, 1790

It was a little like a John le Carre novel – George Smiley meeting his old nemesis Karla after the end of the Cold War. As to who is who, I will leave it up to you to decide.

I met David Knight (Group General Manager Secure) recently in Brisbane to catch up after learning he was leaving Secure Parking, having started some 33 years ago. He was employed by Garth Matthews and expertly trained in all the dark arts of parking – with a flair for development and negotiations. He rose from a sales role to be Group General Manager and was instrumental in the Secure brand maintaining its pre-eminence in the Queensland market.

Brett and Garth Matthews former joint CEO’s (Secure founders) received their final payments from Park24 in late July and are now focussed on their private interests. A number of other senior managers have recently departed from Secure including Josh Thornley and Rohan Matthews. Replacing almost 100 years of parking experience will be a challenge. From Wilson, Peter Witts ( General Manager NSW for over 12 years) recently left and the industry is seeing a changing of the guard from the two companies who have led the parking industry in Australia for over 30 years.

Westpac Technology Trial

Westpac are in negotiations with BaseUp for the implementation of their cloud-based technology for Westpac staff parking.

The updated BaseUp system utilises a geo fenced area immediately adjacent to the entry or exit reader that allows a smart device to communicate to the reader to activate the gate, without a customer having to press a button on their app to open the gate. Essentially a hands-free operation.

The geo fence around the gate prevents the signal from the app being detected from an adjacent gate – for example where an exit and entry gate are side by side.

Prop Tech

This is a new term describing the transformation of the property industry – not just parking. Proptech is the convergence of property and technology. It is about leveraging new technology into the property ecosystem.

Click on the link below (subscription required) if you have not read the recent article by Folkestone's Adrian Harrington in The Australian on prop tech and how it is changing the way landlords and tenants interact – being driven by demands of tenants for flexibility and increased efficiencies in their use of space. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/proptechs-the-way-of-the-future/news-story/3a524669d319c338d5fb0ac610a56a63

ParkNow

Winner 2018 Innovation Award Intertraffic
In conjunction with BMW, ParkNow showcases a smart parking solution that directs drivers to off street parking stations (and can book a space) as well as showing availability of the most likely on street spaces based on historical and real time traffic flow data. BMW cars integrate it into their in-dash displays.

No snorkel required

Warehouse conversions are commonplace around the globe for residential and commercial property – but this must be a first.

Around the corner from my hotel in Amsterdam was a canal conversion – that’s right – a canal that is being converted into a carpark!

The De Pijp district was built in the late nineteenth century with narrow streets and no cars. Whilst the Dutch love their bikes (and no carbon fibre or lycra here) they also want their cars. So ZJA Zwarts & Jansma architects have come up with a great solution that provides parking for 600 cars and 60 bicycles under a canal.

AI Park

Artificial Intelligence and parking?

This was not even a blip on the radar five years ago. AI are in a similar field to ParkNow with a variety of white labelled products for smart devices and in car displays. They have a substantial presence in Germany with a proven product. However, the product that caught my eye was for on street parking or open-air parking lots. A single sensor can cover up to 30 spaces and is mounted on a lamp post and can be solar powered. It has a cloud-based engine that can provide extensive predictive and useage data to a central location or to users through smart devices.

Intertraffic 2018

ParkScience attended the premier event for parking and traffic nerds in Amsterdam in April – braving 5-degree weather to see where the industry is headed. It is a massive event with almost 900 companies from 49 countries exhibiting, and over the four event days a record of 32,317 visitors from 138 countries worldwide attended. Over 75% of attendees were international visitors.