Building a new network for young parking professionals

First meeting of group planned for 29 November

An embryonic young parking professionals network will be launched in London next month.

Having attended numerous parking events, I have come away with new learnings and new connections each time. However, I feel that not enough young people are attending these events and the knowledge shared by experienced parking professionals gets lost as they preach to the converted.

There has been a positive response to the launch of what is being called the Young Parking Professionals Interest Group (YPP) from across the parking and related sectors. Since the formation of the YPP group was announced, the response and feedback have been overwhelmingly positive. It has been very encouraging to see the interest from all corners of the industry, which has lead to wide-ranging conversations with young professionals working in the world of academia, railway, automobile, real estate, city planning and much more.

The YPP will to have its first meeting in London on 29 November at JustPark’s new offices in Camden Town, London between 2pm and 4.30pm. JustPark has kindly agreed to lend us the office space to host the first event. Come along for pizza, beer, and, to those of you who know, legendary brownies made by its in-house chef, Julie. Due to interest, we have to limit participation to three employees per company. Please do email me names and number of attendees so we can arrange for enough beer and pizza, and so that Jules knows how many brownies to bake!

Defining the group
The first meeting of the YPP on 29 November will address issues such as skills development, trends in mobility services and the identity of the group itself. Themes to be discussed on the day will include how could the group be of practical use to members and their careers. Themes to be discussed will be based on the comments Hao has received from people expressing interest. These include:

• Understand what skills are needed in the industry in the future
• Understand the government’s view on mobility and how that affects our industry
• Gather and share knowledge on new technologies affecting parking
• Take turns presenting on some of the challenges your organisation is currently facing and see if anyone within the group can offer advice.
• Is there a possibility of building partnerships across members’ organisations?
• Have a representative from each of the different industries members represent to give the group a high-level summary of what’s new in their corner of the transport world.
• Quarterly thought leadership presentations
• How the group can be ‘owned’ by all of its members

We would like to, jointly as a group, establish the goals and objectives of the group. I very much want this group to be of practical use to us and not just a social gathering. I want it to be ‘owned’ by all of us. Precisely because the wider industry beyond parking is interested in being part of the group, one piece of recurrent feedback was to perhaps change the name to be more inclusive of other industries than just parking. This is one of the key items on the agenda for the first meeting!

Some thought is being given to defining a number of roles that will help the YPP evolve as a network and develop ideas. These include:

• A sector head from each industry present who would give the group a quarterly summary of what’s what in their industry
• Partnership builder, who would find other organisations the YPP can partner and learn from (e.g. Universities, British Parking Association and International Parking Community)
• Events/marketing manager, who would arrange for the group to be hosted at different members’ companies, find speakers, attract members and arrange for presentation topics in line with members’ interest.

ITS expert to address first group meeting
The YPP intends to invite guest speakers to share their knowledge and expertise with members.  The first YPP interest group will be addressed by Richard Harris, an internationally recognised expert in ITS (intelligent transport systems), with over 30 years’ experience and held senior positions in leading companies and industry associations.

Richard Harris, who is a director at Real ITS Global, was inducted into the ITS World Congress Hall of Fame in 2015 as the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award. His citation read: “An effective and charismatic champion and thought-leader for ITS for over 25 years who selflessly promotes ITS in general, without commercial considerations or bias. Known, respected, trusted and liked by ITS professionals around the world, his commitment in international organisations continues to inspire and benefit the international ITS community.”

Richard Harris’s presentation will address:

• Parking as the key to changing behaviour
• Key mobility challenges such as: air quality; connected and automated vehicles; the sharing economy; and Mobility as a Service (MaaS)
• The new mobility ecosystem
• Data as the driver of services
• Policy aspects and initiatives
• Governance
• Market and business opportunities for the parking industry.

For further information contact Ninh Hao via ninh.hao@justpark.com