In fact, failure to invest in a car park could mean shoppers will go elsewhere. The car park is the first thing most shoppers see when they visit a shopping centre and first impressions count for a lot. If shoppers have difficulty finding a space, if they a car park dark, dingy and unsafe, or if manoeuvrability is not easy, then a shopper may think twice before visiting that centre again.

Ewan Miller, managing director of intelligent parking solutions company Designa UK, believes it is important that shoppers don't really even notice the car park in their shopping trip. "The whole idea is to focus on the customer experience and get customers in and out as easily as possible," he says. "They shouldn't remember, except positively, the parking experience."

Miller says that people in Ireland have now come to expect quality car parks because the bar has been raised in the Emerald Isle. Dublin's Dundrum Town Centre, which uses Designa's PM Abacus IT-based pay-on-foot system, is a prime example of how successful a shopping centre car park can be.

"We are trying to raise expectations through technology and other means," says Miller. "This is what they expect now and anything else is not good enough. Important factors certainly include the look and feel of the place, how easy it is to get into the parking space, the lighting, the way the floors are painted and the signage. The car park should be more like the shopping centre itself.

"We recommend the customer uses icons to remember where they have parked without having to actually make any conscious decision to think about it." For example at Dundrum each level has a different animal theme.

"The other thing is to use technology to do that," adds Miller. "For example at Dundrum we use licence plate recognition to track where you park in the car park. When you go to the pay station it is printed on the ticket. Typically people want to find out where they park before they go to the car park so the touchscreens in the shopping centres allow shoppers to put in their car registration to find out where they parked. It actually paints a path."

Miller points out that they design their car parks with the worst drivers on the road in mind. "We have to design the whole situation so that the driver doesn't damage the car," he says.

Dundrum provides a good example of how well a car park can work for a shopping centre. Designa worked with car space company Schick to incorporate their car guidance systems. "Dundrum says that's the best system they have got," says Miller. "Getting people into those spaces means people are getting into spaces quickly without getting annoyed and they have a full car park. All the LEDs are along the aisle so those ones stuck in the corner where people can't tell if there is a space, get used. Also on the green issue people are not circling looking for spaces.

"Plus you can also identify disabled spaces differently as well as mother and child spaces."

At Dundrum, interestingly, their car park provides other avenues for the mall other than simply somewhere for shoppers to park their vehicles. They also hold fashion shows in the car park. "It shows you can do more in a car park than just park cars," says Miller. "You wouldn't have expected to go to a fashion show in a car park in the past.

"Dundrum's car park is also four times broader than a normal car park. It gives people the feeling of safety which is important in an underground car park. Safety is important so the lighting is high level and there are also 36 help points."

Unusually for an underground car park there is also mobile phone reception so customers can continue conversations or even dial for help. "It did cost a lot of money to do that at Dundrum," says Miller. "They had to bring all mobile operators to one table and get a company to incorporate all these operators into one box."

As it is an IT platform, the PM Abacus system offers additional facilities to many of its competitors. "The IT system means the car park managers can offer arrangements for people using their car parks regularly. Also there can be other tickets for contractors working there that need to go in free of charge.

"You can also integrate other systems into it, for example the business management. You can integrate these systems and provide an overall monitoring of the facilities."

In addition, customer loyalty cards can be used to obtain free or discounted parking. At Dundrum, shoppers receive a branded voucher allowing them to pay for their parking if they spend over £15. In other centres there is a possibility of receiving discounts on parking by shopping at certain shops.

Looking forward Miller says the next big thing to watch out for is RFID identification chip cards, which would be put into the car at the point of manufacture and will hold a bank of information on the vehicle. A scan of the card will take away the need for parking tickets. "It would be automatic payment and you just drive through," he says. "We have to establish a medium that identifies your car and then you need a reader to extract the information. You wouldn't need number plate recognition any more. ."

Whatever we can expect in the future, it is critical that ease of access for the customer remains top of the agenda.

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