An increasingly popular way of improving a car park's value is to bring in an external parking consultant to advise on areas where money can either be saved or made - usually through improvements to customer service and car park design.

Matthew Maudling of Town Centre Parking says: "We advise owners of existing shopping centre car parks on how to improve customer perception. That might be introducing different machinery, tariff structures or lighting. The other half of our business involves the redesign of car parks. We get involved in the design of the car park by forecasting revenues once the car park is operational. It gives the developer knowledge of whether the car park is viable or not.

"What we've seen in the last five years is the importance that landlords and owners are now putting on their car park as the biggest single generator of income. Everyone is driven by providing returns for the investors and the car park in the past has perhaps been forgotten; now it's in the forefront.

"We provide a detailed report on the working of the car park, looking at design elements, equipment and lighting, and provide an analysis of existing performance, for example, dwell periods, number of vehicles, and so on.

"Then we do a recommendation about what a redesign will cost and justify this with a forecast increase in vehicles or reduction in operational costs."

New technological advances such as ANPR, says Maudling, have enabled operational costs to be improved. "But with shopping centres there has to be an awareness that you can't take the automation to such a degree that you prevent the customer from feeling safe," he adds. "People do like a manned presence in the car park, but I think that whole issue of staffing a car park can improve further with better training. Staff allocation is often within the service charge budget, but with a better customer focus these people can increase their roles in terms of helping customers."

Maudling explains that VMS vehicle guidance is often useful for very busy car parks and can greatly improve the efficiency of a car park, but stresses that it's an expensive option.

"I think the reason that every car park doesn't have it is a cost issue," he says. "It's circa £200 a space to install within a new car park and £600 a space to fit retrospectively to an old car park.

"It doesn't justify the expense unless the car park is particularly busy and one that's caused a lot of discussion is Dundrum. That was a new car park where they really looked at the specification in great detail and were ready to invest the capital funds. Cameras pick you up and if you forget where you parked your car the system will tell you. These systems are out there, but the alternative is having staff directing cars to spaces."

Nigel Williams, director of newly-established consultancy Parking Matters, brings with him a wealth of experience gained from working at Q-Park. He believes landlords will maximise occupancy of their car parks if people can get in and out quickly and easily, locate free bays quickly and then quickly find their car afterwards.

"Shopping centres are often in competition with out-of-town centres that don't charge their customers to park their car, so it's about working smarter and making car parks more welcoming and easier to use," says Williams.

"One thing centres can do is install better guidance systems. Car parks sometimes close because they're apparently 'full' because of the way they're designed. Some of that is to do with choosing the right payment systems so people don't have to queue up at the pay stations to get in and out. Centres need to introduce smarter ways of payment such as mobile phones or special cards. It's about integrating the marketing of the car park with that of the shopping centre. At Liverpool One, the client is making sure the car park offer enhances the centre rather than the other way round."

With a business focus on new- build car parks, Williams says he concentrates on the usability of the car park, an area sometimes ignored by design teams. "When you come in, is it clear where you have to go?" he asks. "If a decision has to be made in a couple of seconds after the barriers, then that decision has to be prepared. Will you go up or down?

"If designers don't understand how a car park will be used, that's where the problems come from - and most architects don't have that experience."

In addition, car park operator CP Plus recognises that customers' parking habits on a surface car park change as a result of a new retailer line-up. Development director Grahame Rose says that if a new retailer opens, shoppers will initially try to park near to that tenant.

"It's unusual for developers to get a car park company to help them when building a scheme," says Rose. "They rely on the architect. They don't know the whole retail line-up at that stage but it will have a big effect on where people park and where the prime flow is in the car park.

"An M&S Simply Food, for example, would attract short stays, so you'd want to get traffic to that area quickly.

"Usually you can change the flow by directing people down the roadways using clear signage and road markings to get them to the hotspots swiftly."

So what additional cost-saving methods are there?

"For existing shopping centre car parks, over time, we often see savings on staffing levels," says Maudling. "The staff are often doing a dual purpose job, patrolling the car parks and the malls. So by redefining the budget you can reduce staffing costs without reducing customer service.

"You can also improve the utility costs through new lighting and ventilation systems. While they incur an initial capital sum for the replacement, you can benefit greatly with the long-term maintenance, and by reducing power costs."

Williams points to a refurbishment project in Sheffield, carried out by Q-Park, which paid for itself in just two years by replacing the existing lighting with a much more efficient and cost-effective system.

Maudling adds that there is often a cost saving in revenue control systems, where there are often very high annual maintenance costs. In addition, savings can even be made by choosing payment machines that cost less to maintain. For example, Scheidt & Bachmann's pay-on-foot system uses a chip coin rather than paper tickets. This innovation not only saves on paper but also on maintenance costs, as the internal machinery is less complex and a great deal less likely to be subject to mechanical problems.

"Pretty much every element of the car park can produce savings," says Maudling. "It's not morally an issue of putting up tariffs to increase revenue; there are often great savings to be made through the day-to-day workings of a shopping centre's car park."

When it comes to new car parks, particularly within mixed-use schemes, Maudling says that it's extremely important to have a parking consultant on board from the very beginning.

"We provide the greatest benefit by being brought in from day one," he comments. "What we're seeing from a number of new designs throughout the UK is that the car park is often being required to fulfil an increasing number of roles. For example, during the day it provides for the shopper, in the evening it provides for the cinema- and restaurant-goers. Plus, in a mixed-use scheme, it's constantly providing for the residents. So it's absolutely critical that the design of the car park is focused from the start. Often that's not the case and it's an area that receives less attention than, say, the design of the apartments in a mixed-use scheme."

Williams believes it's important to always take into consideration the needs of all the different types of user groups when dealing with a mixed-use scheme.

"Each user group is different and their time patterns are also different," he says. "How people use the car park throughout the day is very different and the way they pay for their parking is also different in terms of the systems you put in to manage those uses. Some users will be able to use the same space - for instance, commuters can use the same space as those using the hotel. In general the amount of time they will cross over will be very limited.

"It's about making sure you have the parking provision absolutely right. Not building too many spaces, because they're expensive to build. It's a matter of evaluating what the parking demand is for different user groups and how many people will use the same spaces.

"It might be sensible to phase the parking provision. We're helping our clients to develop a strategy towards parking from the beginning."

Maudling points out that there are numerous areas that have to be explored when planning a new car park build. For example, he says that incorporating very light-coloured cement prevents the need for paint, thus greatly reducing the costs of maintenance.

"There are various deck coatings available that can greatly improve the visual aspect of the car park," he says.

"You need to look at the number of lanes that are required to deal with forecast vehicle demand, the lux levels, the aisle widths, the lane widths and where the columns are placed. It's surprising with a modern car park how many designs you see with the columns still at the front of the bay, but it often goes back to design issues. Being on board from day one we can direct the car park design to maximise efficiency and ultimately improve the revenue of the car park - right down to automating the doors into the shopping centre. We continually push for a high quality design within a car park."

Williams believes that developers benefit hugely from opting to use a car parking consultancy from the very beginning.

"We don't cost very much," he says. "But by employing us you are certainly avoiding the problems that do cost a lot of money."

Leases linked to performance

Shopping centre landlords are incorporating stricter terms into their car park leases in order to retain some control over the quality of their asset.

Matthew Maudling of Town Centre Parking points out that the terms under which a car park is let to the operator have become far more oriented to the customer and landlord.

"Recently, the car park leases at Paradise Street in Liverpool and Grand Arcade, Wigan, have contained key performace indicators [KPIs] which clearly state what should be provided and the terms of customer service," he says. "Leases didn't originally have such provisions, and this helped to give car parks a bad name. If the operator fails to implement those KPIs, then the landlord can step in.

"What landlords often miss is that operators are profit-maximising organisations themselves, so if they can make a profit they will do so. But we provide an independent consultancy view to the options available to the landlord."

Maudling explains that how a landlord decides its shopping centre car park should be managed depends on its own investment strategy. For example, he points out that a big institution needs to be aware of its income stream to meet pension payments and so on.

"Any lease at a known rent can be attractive to them as they can plan more readily," says Maudling. "Whereas a one-man-band may have more time to operate it themselves. It really depends on the owner's investment strategy."

Optimum balance

Over the last decade, technology has revolutionised the options available to the car park sector in terms of asset management.

This has resulted in a trend towards removing all parking staff in favour of totally centralised monitoring. However, a visible human presence in the car park is key to providing the customer with an element of reassurance, says Phillip Herring, commercial director at Vinci Park UK.

"The benefits of centralisation are clear and in order to continue to deliver the most efficient and cost-effective service, we make full and appropriate use of technology," he says. "The difference is that our values are based around our people and customer service, so maintaining that human touch is really very important to us.

"With the advent of increased centralisation and technological advances, we're training our car park attendants to multi-task when they're not immediately needed by car park customers, making the best use of freed-up time. Not only do we stand to gain as we run our car parks more efficiently without compromising on customer service, our staff are also benefiting from training in new areas.

"One of our big aims for 2008 is to develop a formula for determining the optimum balance between technology and staff deployment. We believe that the resulting matrix will be a valuable tool for enhancing our performance."

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