Awards
Q-Park’s commitment to quality and innovation continues to shine. In 2024, Q-Park UK, Q-Park Ireland and Q-Park Netherlands were nominated for and/or received various awards.
Awards won
Q-Park UK: Smart Parking Award
CiTTI, the City Transport & Traffic Innovation Magazine, awarded their 2024 Facilities and Infrastructure Smart Parking Award to Q-Park UK.
The award recognises and celebrates innovation and ongoing efforts by public and private sector organisations in facilitating safe, efficient and environmentally-friendly transport of people, goods and materials through urban environments in the UK.
The Smart Parking category recognises intelligent approaches to planning and managing parking, as well as advances in systems used to manage parking. This includes ‘joined-up’ or lateral thinking which delivers solutions for on-street and off-street needs, as well as innovations in hardware, devices or wider systems that enhance parking management efficiency and customer experienc
Q-Park was nominated for the award for PaSS, its Parking as a Smart Service automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system.
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PaSS is an evolutionary innovation which combines ANPR technology with digital payment solutions, a Quick Response code (QR code), Q-Park's proprietary Back-Office Calculation (BOC) and Parking Management Systems (PMSs) at car park access and exit points.
Q-Park NL: Dutch Shopping Award
Q-Park Netherlands received the Dutch Shopping Award prize for its digital transformation of parking. These Shopping Awards are the most important awards for retail and e-commerce in the Netherlands. In selecting Q-Park, the jury of professionals commended the organisation saying: “The winner has been bold to do things completely differently.”
Figure 4 Dutch team wins Shopping Award
Q-Park won the award for its digital transformation of the traditional parking world. Q-Park started developing its innovative parking management technology: ‘Parking as a Smart Service’, also known as PaSS in 2018.
The platform uses existing hardware in the parking facilities, such as entry and exit barriers. The innovation includes ANPR and smart software which manages access, charging and reporting in Q-Park’s proprietary cloud environment. This platform enables a uniform customer journey in the Netherlands and throughout Europe.
Award nominations
Q-Park IE: Electric Vehicle Awards
Q-Park IE was nominated for two Electric Vehicle Awards for exceptional achievements in the electric vehicle industry in Ireland.
Charging Point Operator of the Year for exceptional service to customers and fleet owners for private and public destination and workplace charging.
Best Destination or Services Charging Offering Award for publicly accessible EV charging points, at public car parks, service stations and hospitality venues.
Q-Park UK: Chelmsford BID Business Awards
Q-Park UK was nominated in the Professional Service of the Year category at the Chelmsford BID Business Awards. Since Q-Park UK took over management of the Chelmsford Meadows car park, it has implemented many improvements including 8 EV charging points and PaSS.
Q-Park UK: British Parking Awards
Q-Park UK was nominated for the Parking Operator of the Year award in the ‘Outstanding Car Park Operator’ category for creating a positive experience for motorists, including easy-to-understand, non-confrontational and person-centric services.
Student award
The Q-Park Student Award is organised by the Erasmus University Rotterdam and Q-Park, and is open to students from European colleges and universities. The theme for this tenth edition was Mobility transition for communities.
Keynote speakers focus on mobility transition
The first speaker Rogier André de la Porte, Director of City Development (Municipality of Rotterdam), discussed Rotterdam’s biggest challenge: maintaining mobility in the urban area while building some 50 thousand homes before 2040.
The second speaker Raymond Gense, Director PON Mobility explained how PON started as a family-owned company and is now operating on a global scale with the motto: We move you to a better world. PON has no shortage of innovative mobility ideas and has established many shared mobility services.
Winning students present their work
Giuliano Mingardo, senior researcher at Erasmus University Rotterdam and specialised in parking policy and mobility management, introduced the students and praised the high scientific standard of their research.
The winners presented their work:
Agata Oskroba, Maastricht University: Parking demand prediction - time series forecast for season ticket and pre-booking customers with event-correction framework.
Evi Rombouts, University of Antwerp: Finding suitable drop zone locations for free-floating forms of micromobility.
Laura Drechsel, TU Delft: Stories of aging and access – Exploring capabilities and challenges of accessibility for urban elderly through microstories.
A summary of these three theses and the winning theses from previous years are available on the Q-Park Student Award website.