How to Plan and Build a Car Park: A Guide for Project Professionals

Structuring the perfect car park

Once all stakeholders have agreed on the main reasons for building a new car park, it is possible to start planning the structure, features and facilities. If you are looking to provide a parking solution for a set number of people, this is a good time to plan the layout of the car park – ensuring it effectively supports the required volume of cars.

The layout must also accommodate the various types of visitors, from blue-badge holders, parent and child, staff, visitors, customers, etc. Consider how many spaces they may require, who will take priority and any special requirements (for instance parent and child spaces above the ground floor may require easy access to a lift).

However, if you’re keen to monetise your car park as much as possible, be creative about using the space wisely. After all, it’s about getting as many people in your car park as possible. You may want to promote a maximum stay, so you get a good turnover of vehicles throughout the day. However, this is only appropriate if your business is supported by shorter visits (e.g. a supermarket or fast food restaurant).

The key here is to identify how you want your customers to use your car park, and then build it around those requirements. So, alongside turnover requirements, consider how your audience would prefer to pay for their parking (permits vs pay-on-site, for example).

Barriers to progress

Of course, there are issues that businesses face when looking to build a new car park. Some of these factors could stand in the way of going ahead with the construction of the car park, potentially putting the project behind schedule.

Whilst employing the service of a specialist provider can help alert you to some of these issues, it is worth identifying them at the outset of the project with a little due diligence. Here are a few of the potential issues to be aware of:

• Potential enforcement and reputational considerations: sadly, visitors who receive parking notice charges sometimes channel their anger towards on-site staff or online forums. Whilst this is no fault of the business which owns the car park, it can impact the staff and business’ reputation. This is only applicable to certain car parks, and ParkingEye can provide staff training to help the team deal with difficult situations.
• Changes to the customer journey, as well as disruption from the usual site operation.
• Installation costs – whilst there may be long-term profits, these need to be weighed up against initial costs. ParkingEye will in certain circumstances offer the install free of charge.
• Go live day and roll-out hiccups.
• Aesthetic impact from signage, internal terminals and machines.
• Customer reaction.

Power and internet

The car park’s equipment will need reliable power sources to function properly. Your service provider will be able to connect you to a lighting circuit or distribution board, while a dedicated line ensures data quality and a stable connection; the latter is the responsibility of the landowner or business owner through their utility provider.

For those focussing on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy ParkingEye offer fully integrated solutions with their smart ANPR technology, the diverse ParkingEye ‘payment’ portfolio features solar-powered as well as hard-wired solutions.

Groundworks

The service provider will have survey documents and plans that detail the groundworks and available sources of power, aided with a dedicated civil engineering team who will conduct the planning and groundwork. This includes camera columns, bollards, islands and directional constructions, as well as a line search to ensure there is nothing in the ground which could be disrupted during construction. Switchover and downtime are also closely monitored and kept to a minimum wherever possible, with processes in place to ensure smooth transitions and quick responses.