Parking: out of adversity comes innovation
Intertraffic
Smart, safe and sustainable mobility for all! China 29 - 31 May 2024 | Americas 17 - 19 June 2025
Hello and welcome back.
After COVID-19 took the world by storm in 2020, (un)expectedly, it converted the global population from having no mobility to future mobility, with changes in consumer preferences shaping the market we now have. Besides safety, consumers have become more focused on sustainability issues. As a result, sustainable parking solutions are part of a larger trend towards eco-friendly and socially responsible mobility. Let's take a look at how far this market has come.
2019: Parking - The neglected ugly sister
Since smart cities have started claiming an important role in the traffic world, parking also reached its crunch-point. Car parks were invariably dirty, smelly, expensive – and full. In almost every city around the world, parking remained a grudge-purchase, and few people enjoyed it. Nobody ever claimed, “I love parking,” just as few people ever professed their love for taking a taxi. But people do love Uber. A lot of it had to do with the human element, plus no hassle for parking spots.
Besides that, with government legislation to limit the number of vehicles on the road due to a license plate restriction, led to many households buying a second vehicle to circumvent the laws. This exacerbated the problems around parking and congestion.
2020: How ready are we for sustainable mobility?
During the virus outbreak, traffic in some countries decreased by 50%. In March during lockdown, data showed a 20% - 30% drop?in toxic gas in large parts of China and Italy.
On the positive side, COVID-19 seemed to have speeded up the use of certain modalities contributing to sustainable mobility. However, the mobility sector was also facing huge economic challenges with investments put on hold to contribute to that same sustainable mobility. It seemed we were caught in two minds: economy and environment. So, should we reprioritise?
2021: Ten sustainable parking innovations
As of 2021, transport and mobility were accountable for over 16% of the world's greenhouse gasses and almost a quarter of Europe’s emissions.?Creating more sustainable parking is key as it is the start and endpoint of almost any type of mobility. In the second Global Sustainable Transport Conference in 2021, the United Nations published a full report on Sustainable Transport, where parking was mentioned three times.
When considering sustainability within parking, we had to think about a more sustainable strategy in every aspect of the parking, from building with other materials for the parking, using circular resources and much more. Intertraffic explored ten solutions aimed at the parking sector, in regards to sustainability issues.
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2022: The role of parking in the EU Green Deal
As mentioned before, the transport sector accounted for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, and the EU Green Deal had a plan to slash emissions by at least 90% by 2050, as compared to 1990. Realistically, the parking sector would remain key for any sustainability measures in the mobility sector.
While investors or real estate managers often focus solely on new buildings and properties when considering sustainability goals, it's equally crucial to ensure that existing properties meet these objectives when urban space is becoming scarcer. This applies to properties such as multi-storey car parks, underground garages, logistics areas, or older shopping malls. These spaces have massive potential to change how we think of accessibility, last-mile connectivity, and the creation of urban mobility hubs.
2023 and forward
Since the start of 2023, Intertraffic has introduced several innovative parking solutions that managed to bring consumers closer to a sustainable mobility environment: car-sharing , EV chargers , and e-scooters in micro mobility . It's only been a few months into 2023, but new ideas towards sustainability keep coming with firm goals and planning. What is more to come?
Hot topics this month you don't want to miss:
To give you complete knowledge on mobility overview, we also list below all the latest news on the sector from Intertraffic.
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