Smart Parking Enablement Powering Electromobility Transition
Transformational shift of urban mobility landscape requires innovative mobility solutions which will be able to overcome challenges placed on urban transport — higher demand and meeting environmental goals. Reducing greenhouse gases caused by the transport sector is one of the imperatives to avoid negative effects of climate change and improve urban air quality in line with the Paris Agreement.
Trends transforming mobility and parking
Behind the undergoing revolution in transport there are trends impacting mobility, and thus changing the role of parking. There are four main forces and technologies shaping the future of mobility: Autonomous, Connected, Electric, and Shared vehicles (shortened to the acronym ACES). All of them — especially taken together, will redefine the role of parking infrastructure. The major changes will refer to more efficient parking finding enabled by smart parking technologies, adoption of parking infrastructure for EV charging stations, as well as for parking dedicated to shared and on-demand mobility modes (bikes, scooters, carsharing pick-up and drop-off spots).
Another aspect which will indirectly imply transformation of parking role is a demographic one. Namely, Millennials (born between 1982 and 2003) who will dominate the next decades in using urban transport — will demand interconnected transport modes able to satisfy their multi-modal and on-demand lifestyle. This implies the necessity to consolidate all the mobility options available in the city and creation of mobility hubs (parkings) to enable seamless link between first and last mile. Even with reduction of cars in the city centers, trips by car (whether shared, autonomous or electric) will maintain an important mode of transport — at least in some parts of the journey, especially considering so called “mobility deserts” underserved by public transport. Micromobility options like shared bikes or electric scooters, are often expected to be parked at docks in dedicated spaces. They are seen as a remedy for short-duration travels and first/last mile transport. According to McKinsey & Company, integrated transport modes could accommodate up to 30% more passengers, reduce average time per trip by 10% and (if AVs are electric), reduce GHG emissions by up to 85%[1].
Apart from being less dependent on cars, Millennials are more environmentally-conscious, and when making mobility decisions they can consider the carbon footprint. In curbing transport emissions, both electromobility and smart parking technologies have their role, contributing to more sustainable mobility: EV — directly, Smart Parking — indirectly, cutting the time of idling and circling in search for a parking spot. Better availability of parking spaces and transport options by making them visible in the application, allows end-to-end trip planning, resulting in optimized, more balanced mobility. With further integration of all transit options provided by public authorities and private transport operators into one Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) tool, the users will be able to assess their impact on the environment related to using different mobility options, and choose more eco-friendly ones.
Carbon-neutral city centers
As transport industry accounts for 21% of all CO2 emissions, cities are introducing a range of mitigating actions in order to meet the Paris Agreement goals of keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. The EU long-term strategy is to curb its emissions by 80–95% (compared to 1990 levels) by 2050. Satisfying mobility needs of the growing urban population while meeting objectives from environmental and energy perspective, requires from current mobility services to become more efficient and more sustainable. Strategic Urban Mobility plans addressing the objectives to achieve low-emission transport, should concentrate on the following aspects:
· Expanding and improving existing transit network
· Optimizing freight movement
· Transport modes integration (including first and last mile mobility)
· Adoption of less polluting means of transport such as electric mobility and micromobility as a greener alternative to private cars
· Promoting sustainable ways of moving around.
Decarbonization of cities is a long-term strategy where electrification of transport plays a crucial role. For example, Amsterdam set the targets for taxis, vans, and freight trucks to be emission free by 2025. Although electric mobility has started breaking into the mainstream, there are still many challenges to address on a strategic and operational level. Those are:
COSTS
associated with the new industry, in particular investments in the provision of electric charging stations. Countries introduce financial and non-financial incentives for EVs buyers like higher amortisation rates for company vehicles, exemption from excise tax, parking fees. Additionally, new parking locations in a city should be EV ready and have designated EV-specific parking spaces. As the home is the primary charging location for most electric vehicles[2], cities should incentivize installation of EVs technology in private buildings. This could benefit not only personal vehicle owners, but also third-party users, commercial fleets — if the access to charging point and selling energy by private owners is permitted.
SUSTAINABLE FREIGHT
Urban freight logistics contributes significantly to the total CO2 city traffic emissions. To achieve CO2-free city logistics, the city should work closely with commercial industry and encourage logistics companies to adopt EVs (vans and trucks). The purchase of company EVs has a large share in the whole purchase power for EVs. For instance, fleet and business clients bought 70% of the cars sold in Poland in 2017. To integrate urban logistics in e-mobility there are challenges to overcome from planning perspective regarding to provision of recharging stations considering distribution routes and the limited driving-range capabilities of EVs. Decisions have to be made about the location, number and capacity of the stations. As charging and discharging (in the Vehicle-to-Grid scenario) of EVs takes place at the parking facilities — they will play an important role in transformation to emission-free inner city delivery.
To mitigate the impact of trucks on congestions, emissions and noise in a city, new forms of cooperation should be created: cross-company, cross-sectoral and multi-institutional where parking facilities can serve as Green City Hubs — enabling to reload goods to vehicles with alternative drive, e-cargo bikes which are becoming more efficient for last mile transport and they can get closer to delivery point than vans. Therefore, new business models for fleet operators, fleet management, vehicle routing, charging strategy, parking access control and parking management are needed to support last mile logistics and delivery on demand from parkings having its new role — multimodal mobility hubs. Parking lots dedicated for such hubs should be used as shared-hubs in order to optimize their utilization, beyond only limited time of exploitation during reloading. At the same time, cities should consider policies regulating curbside access for logistics EVs and encouraging off-peak hours of operations.
Providing smart parking solutions to easy wayfinding to parking (and charging point, in case of EVs) will increase both the comfort for drivers and the efficiency for towns and municipalities. The technology can be applied not only for logistics companies but also for taxi corporations with electric cars fleet, municipal fleet or touristic buses entering city center. Smart City Wroclaw implemented, in cooperation with NaviParking, the tool for touristic bus drivers guiding them to the closest available bus parking — temporary (up to 15 minutes to drop off tourists) and permanent with no time restrictions. This way the city can reduce unnecessary driving and limit GHG emissions — which his particularly important giving the engine power of buses.
NEW BUSINESS MODELS
Giving complexity of the transport and energy ecosystem, encompassing transport network companies, electricity suppliers, automotive industry, fleet operators, charging and parking infrastructure, horizontal cooperation among stakeholders is required. The question is not whether partnerships will happen or when, but what are the most optimal models to collaborate in order to provide urbanites with seamless mobility and green mobility options. As McKinsey report points out, the basis for seamless mobility of the future is physical infrastructure (roads, stations, rail, parking facilities) and the energy infrastructure powering it[3]. And because physical infrastructure is being digitalized, it should be interconnected and equipped with innovative technologies making it possible to respond to changing mobility (and electric) demand, assuring electricity and parking spot availability.
Meeting growing demand for EV charging in peak times, may need to utilize EV charging spots located at private and residential areas, as well as developing energy storage, utilizing Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology. V2G and Smart charging, especially for public and commercial fleet, can support lower price for electricity by charging when electricity prices from renewable energy are low and stop charging (return stored electricity to the grid) when demand for electricity is high. V2G can reduce temporary fluctuations in energy production and works as a reserve system for the public grid. Last October Nissan Leaf was qualified to be used as a reserve for the German electricity grid. On top of that, there are profitable business cases to charge premium above the retail electricity prices — in cases where users pay for the electricity and assuming high levels of utilization.
In the context of multimodal transport, including shared, on-demand mobility and in the future — autonomous vehicles — parking infrastructure (both public and private) can be digitally, in real-time allocated to:
· Pick-up / drop-off areas for on-demand mobility
· Charge/Recharge for EVs and V2G uses cases
· Reload at last-mile delivery hubs for logistics
· Connect with alternative and green modes of transport (first and last mile switching point)
· Parking behind the Low-Emission Zones.
Therefore, new ecosystem of partnerships for electromobility transition has to be created, that will integrate users, stakeholders and — what is crucial — enable data sharing between them.
NEW MOBILITY SERVICES
With the introduction of zero emission zones or (Ultra Low Emission Zones) and potentially curbing physical places dedicated for parking, the existing parking and curb infrastructure, should be used more efficiently. Underutilized parking spaces about which drivers do not know they exist, difficult to find or access to which is closed, should be more effectively used and allocated dynamically for those who need them at the moment. Similarly, with the growth of electric cars popularity, the demand for charging stations can be responded if added to the repository of actual public chargers, also EV charging stations located on the private premises.
The Netherlands, which is one of the countries leading in EVs adoption, already started considering usage of private parkings for EV chargers installations. In recent months, the number of charging sessions in that country increased 50%. Also, more kWh was used, which can be related to increase in number of fully electric cars (with higher battery capacity than hybrid cars bought by early adopters at the beginning of the EV trend). As 70% of Dutch people do not have access to their own charging point, they have to rely on publicly available chargers — which number and capacity may not suffice to meet a growing demand and assure accessibility when needed.
Another idea which could help to optimize EV chargers usage is notifying (by push message) the EV car owner that the battery is full — therefore they can come and release EV parking space for their neighbor. This also implies that there must be other parking spots available in order not to block the space dedicated for EV charging. In described cases, private and commercial parkings could serve as repository of available parking and charging spots — shared when the facility users do not occupy them (for instance parking lot which stays empty after working hours). But how to access those facilities? Disruptive mobility innovations provide the answer — the entry to the closed car park, as well as the payment for parking and energy can be done with the use of a smartphone application.
The pioneering project providing such functionalities, is recently being tested in Poland. The concept was developed by NaviParking in cooperation with The Intelligent Mobility for Energy Transition (IMET)initiative and the Polish Academy of Sciences. The concept is simple: NaviParking application communicates with the IoT Access Controller installed in the parking gate barrier and opens it for registered users with one tap in the app. Payments for charging and parking time are meant to be carried out in the application — through PCI DSS compliant gateway for transactions. After the payment is recorded, the user can leave the parking pushing the same “Open barrier” button in the application.
The service, which plans to partner with taxi corporation owning electric fleet, offers fully digital experience benefiting all stakeholders — those looking for a place to park and charge, the parking owners, and the city relieved of cars circling block. Further, those parkings can be integrated with shared electric bikes/scooters platform, fleet management and become mobility hubs. At the same time, encouraging mobility partners to cooperate within a common data platform is an effort to promote open innovation and adoption of vertical Smart City solutions, open to integration with other third-party platforms and components (whether related to transport, energy or smart buildings use cases).
Additional goal of that pilot project is monetization of the Polish Academy of Sciences’ parking facilities from sharing parking spots which are currently suboptimally used — left empty after academic working hours. An important feature from the point of view of a replication of the solution at other institutional and commercial parking lots is that the parking owner maintains in the full control regarding to how many parking spots they want to make available for external users at a given moment. Using desktop dashboard they can control (add or reduce) parking spots “visible” in the application for other (than academicians and institute guests) users, as well as monitor actual occupancy and invoicing.
OPEN APIs AND STANDARIZATION
To enable new business models to thrive, interoperability and Open Data sharing are a prerequisite. This is a big challenge, as currently city data portals are often proprietary, siloed and with poor data quality. Historic data in the form of static “data cementeries” is often outdated, and cities lack IT infrastructure and sufficient technical skills to upload, update, aggregate and share data. The value of historic data can be leveraged for transport management, when it is merged with comprehensive real-time data. Also, parking industry is fragmented with lots of proprietary, old-legacy systems non-integratable with third-party data. In addition, integration of data into APIs lacks uniformity, which implies also that there is no uniform-data sharing for trip planning/Mobility-as-a-Service platforms creation. To overcome that challenge, local governments’ procurement can enforceopen-by-default data sharing regulation to facilitate integration of existing services in the form of multimodal transport where parking policy plays an important role in optimizing urban traffic. Standarization and Open APIs are also necessary to scale and replicate new mobility services encompassing connected infrastructure, network and interconnected mobility. Horizontal integration of parking and mobility data will allow cities to better understand mobility behaviors of citizens and tailor transportation solutions respectively.
REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
According to the Energy Transition Commission (ETC), business sector can play a major part in combating climate change, but only with strong government support. To accelerate the shift into electromobility and sustainable innovations, legislation needs to keep pace with technology. Regulations for innovative business models often do not exist, causing a time lag for policy response, and resulting in innovations falling short of their potential.
For implementation of interconnected and multimodal transport, legislation relating to mobile ticketing, taxation, revenue sharing and data sharing is required. When it comes to electromobility adoption,Norway and UK are front-runners.The demand for EVs is strongly correlated with financial incentives.In Polandthe Act on Electromobility and Alternative Fuels proposesthat the charging of electric vehicles should not be regarded as a sale of electric energy and the licenses for the energy sale will not be required.
Regulations should also take into consideration, potential uses of renewably-generated electricity to power EVs. An example of Uber shows they do not wait for legislation but rather act first and deal with the consequences later.
Apart from regulatory sandbox, deployment of demonstrator projects and testing new business models is conditioned by the support from the side of proper funding and governance. Local government should be able to devote resources to small-scale pilots, like Wroclaw CityLab department created to test promising innovations, prove their usefulness, the value for the city and citizens before decision about mass deployment is taken.
Outcome-oriented policies that fit into the vision of sustainable transport, may be integrated into Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans which will pursue innovative applications of new technologies, and new forms of partnerships. Sometimes cooperation may be required between partners who are not used to work together. One of the recent examples of new forms of partnerships in mobility, which had to go through the European Commission examination, was cooperation between BMW and Daimler on the new multimodal services encompassing EV charging, parking services, taxi ride-hailing, car-sharing[4].
Regarding to regulations for EV infrastructure, local authorities will play an executing role in EV chargers installations. In Poland, municipalities with at least 100.000 inhabitants, in which at least 60.000 vehicles have been registered, and having at least 400 vehicles per 1.000 inhabitants, are subject to the obligation to install charging stations.Public authority of the Lille Metropole considers three options of investments for EV charging stations installations: 1) in public spaces, 2) in Park&Ride facilities, 3) in off-street parking lots. Apart from chargers installations, the Lille Metropole ensures similar prices, services (paying card, mobile app) and interoperability. The authority examines also an effective strategy to integrate private and public stations and management of EV chargers located at large parking lots (mostly underground in the city centre) which are operated by different private operators under a delegation of public services[5].
Conclusion
Enhancing urban transportation and shaping the next generation smart mobility, will require new business models supported by friendly regulatory framework. Integration of innovative solutions and technologies into the daily aspects of a city will engage taking some risk. However, there is also risk associated with taking no action and maintaining the status quo. To share the risk of innovation in a fast pacing technological environment, cooperation between stakeholders is fundamental. Integrating Smart Parking into Sustainable Mobility Action Plans complements multimodality strategy, making the approach more comprehensive. Interconnected, seamless and sustainable urban mobility needs an infrastructural link in the form of a digital, Smart Parking platform making it possible that all the Smart Mobility elements will come together satisfying urbanities’ mobility needs.
[1]https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/sustainability/our%20insights/the%20road%20to%20seamless%20urban%20mobility/an-integrated-perspective-on-the-future-of-mobility-part-3-vf.ashx
[2]According to the U.S. Department of Energy and ComEd: https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/mayor/PDFs/21755_37_AF_MobilityReport.pdf
[3]https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business%20functions/sustainability/our%20insights/the%20road%20to%20seamless%20urban%20mobility/an-integrated-perspective-on-the-future-of-mobility-part-3-vf.ashx
[4]https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/daimler-bmw-will-invest-113-billion-mobility-jv-rival-uber
[5]Thinking Cities, Volume 5, Number 2, November 2018, p. 30–32.
