RAI Amsterdam
Wim Braakman, manager Traffic Management at RAI Amsterdam
"Parking is part of our customer journey."
RAI Amsterdam is one of the Netherlands' largest exhibition and conference organizers. Its goal: to bring people together, connect and inspire by organizing and facilitating meaningful meetings. IP Parking provides all hardware and software in the five parking garages at the RAI. The sixth garage is currently under development and is expected to be operational by the end of 2019.
Wim:
"Around 2010 we needed a webshop for reservations, and wanted to start working with license plate recognition. At the time, IP Parking was the only party that could facilitate this. They have always been the strongest when it comes to innovation. Over the years, parking garages have been added around the RAI. As a result, the cooperation with IP has intensified.
WHAT ASPECTS OF PARKING ARE IMPORTANT TO THE RAI?
In particular, fast flow is essential for us. RAI Amsterdam is located next to the freeway exit, so if cars do not enter our garages quickly enough, this can result in traffic jams on the A10; something we obviously want to prevent. A long time ago the RAI already opted for ticketless entry for this reason. That was new at the time, but WPS (formerly IP Parking) went along with it. In addition to fast entry, I think it is important to be able to offer users of our parking garages the option of paying in advance. The fact is that nobody likes paying for parking, especially after a fun day out. Through IP Parking's webshop module implemented in our website, payment can be made in advance. With that, we are talking about approximately 10,000 to 15,000 reservations per year. Our goal is to multiply the number of webshop reservations in the coming years.
Can visitors to downtown Amsterdam also park with you?
Yes, there is a great need for this due to the fact that the city of Amsterdam is in the process of making the city center car-free. People who come to Amsterdam by car are encouraged to park on the outskirts of the city and take public transport to the city center. We are cooperating in this by deploying our residual capacity. That's about more than 100,000 P+R visitors a year. There are days when we even count more than 1,000 P+R cars. On days when we need all the parking spaces for our own visitors, our garages are not open to P+R visitors.
The nhow Amsterdam RAI hotel has recently opened where IP Parking will handle the software and hardware for parking. Where is the need here?
Within the nhow concept, parking must become part of the customer journey. IP Parking's ticketless concept fits this perfectly. The core of the system is license plate recognition. With the arrival of this new garage, IP Parking's innovative character also comes to the fore again. I want to have several products that will make parking at the RAI even more flexible. Think of tickets that allow you to drive in and out of the hotel garage, but not in and out of the RAI garages, or both. IP Parking is currently getting the most out of the software's flexibility. That makes our collaboration interesting.
What could IP Parking improve?
We are basically very satisfied with IP Parking, but we want to challenge them on the software side. While IP Parking is ahead of the field when it comes to hardware, I've noticed that the software is still traditionally set up for driving in and out with a ticket. This causes inconveniences, because RAI Amsterdam uses license plate entry and exit. For example, the user receives messages on the display such as 'take your ticket out' even though no ticket has been inserted. As a result, the advantage we have with license plate recognition is not always practical. In that area, I would like to see more customization. In terms of the payment terminals, I would like to be able to define the menus and customize notifications myself, personalized per user. Despite that, in this conservative business, IP Parking is the party that is most forward-looking compared to others.
What trends and developments in parking would you like to apply to the RAI?
I see a lot of potential in the residual capacity model. There are days when the capacity of the RAI garages have reached their limit. In that case, RAI visitors must also divert to other locations. At the same time, it happens that these other locations divert to our garages when we have spots left over. I would love to see a fluid back-and-forth cooperation in which parking products from each other can also be used. So that we can use each other's capacity without too much trouble. I believe IP Parking can play a role in this like no other." Thus Wim Braakman.