A Q&A with Ana Preost, executive director, Zagrebparking Ltd.
1. ZagrebParking was among the pioneers of pay-by-phone parking. Zagreb was a model for London. When was this, and what has happened since?
In 2011 we were the first in the world to offer our customers payments via SMS. Since then, we have also offered our customers electronic parking ticket that can be bought at newspaper stand and doesn’t have to be displayed in the vehicle, then we have offered purchase of an electronic parking ticket via online purchases so that customers don’t have to come to our points of sale. And from 2018 we are very proud to offer our customers ZGPARK mobile application.
We have provided our customers variety of parking payment options, while at the same time thinking about environment and rationalization of operating costs.
Currently we have one hundred new solar powered parking machines that support card payment and offer possibility to buy all of all types of parking tickets.
So, to summarize, through all these segments, we have provided our customers variety of parking payment options, while at the same time thinking about environment and rationalization of operating costs.
2. ZagrebParking has 400 employees, 10 public garages, and 35 000 parking spaces. The traffic in the city is still chaotic, and it is almost impossible to find a parking space in the city center.
Stationary traffic is one of the key challenges of all modern metropolises today. We live in a time when one household mostly has more than one car and when the cars themselves are produced in much larger dimensions and numbers than before.
The city center does not have the possibility of expansion, but the solution for parking a certain number of vehicles would be the construction of new public garages. Also, it is necessary to increase the share of users in public transport and to improve a system of public bicycles as part of the system of united public city transport.
It is also important to reduce individual transport in the urban part of the city and by building a “park and ride” system on the outskirts of the city and next to railway stations and tram turns.
For example, our public parking “Gredelj” is a positive example how to enable users to park at affordable prices near the city center. The space of the former Gredelj factory, which has not been used for years, subsidiary Zagrebparking transformed into large parking lot near the city center, between the Bus and the Main Railway Station. This parking lot is a 15 minute walk away from the city center. In this way, we enabled users to leave their cars on parking lot near center and go to the city center by other alternative transport. This parking lot has 500 parking spaces illuminated by the LED lighting. Users can park their vehicles all day for only 1,3 EUR.
3. Why does every big city in Croatia have its own application for smart parking? Can we unify it?
Subsidiary Zagrebparking is the only one to have a card payment system and mobile app in his possession. Other cities use apps from external vendors.
4. You have a single management system for all the garages – what does this mean for tourists visiting Zagreb and looking for a safe place for their vehicles?
This means security and flexibility.
The basic components of the new system:
system for automatic payment and parking control in garages with central control from the control center,
payment system: mobile app., central payment system (processing bank card transactions),
connected infrastructure who enables remote monitoring and management.
5. What are the “green garages” we can see in Zagreb?
From 2017 Tuškanac public garage is the first “green” garage in the city of Zagreb, transferred that project to most of the other public garages we manage.
Green facilities in our garages are:
• parking spaces for hybrid vehicles with a guaranteed preferential parking price
• charges for electric vehicles
• ecological LED lighting
• free bicycle parking spaces
• green spot for selective collection of all types of waste
• natural ventilation such as tge one in our newest public garage “Sveti Duh”
I would definitely highlight our ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGES that we have in our public garages.
In 2015 in Tuškanac public garage first charger for electric vehicle has been installed in 2015.
Every year more and more electric vehicles are on our roads, and also our public garages. For this reason, we have installed two filling stations in 6 of 10 our public garages. In our newly opened public garage KB “Sveti Duh” 10 charging spots for electric vehicles have been installed.
The most of filling stations are located in our newly opened public garage KB “Sveti Duh” where 10 charging spots for electric vehicles have been installed.
At each charging station two vehicles can be charged at the same time. The use of electric charging stations is free.
The price of a subscription ticket for hybrid and electrical vehicles in all our garages has been reduced by 50 percent.
Ana Preost, M.Sc, is executive director, Zagrebparking Ltd and Vice President of Croatian Parking Association. She can be reached at apreost@gmail.com
