Parkex closes a success

With more than 2,200 attendees over the two days, this year’s Parkex was the busiest in the show’s history as a dedicated stand-alone parking event. Going against the grain, Parkex challenged the notions of cutbacks and recession, showcasing an industry that was actively looking to improve and invest in future parking projects. Visitors were notably focused, with clear spending priorities and objectives. Don Turner, business development executive from SEA, commented: “This year’s Parkex has been busier for us than ever before. The intent of the visitors has been much more serious.”
    
Ian Whitmore from WPS also commented on the mindset of the visitors, saying “there was a good quality of visitor with genuine intention to buy”, and Craig Alewood from Phillips emphasised the sense of surprise within the industry: “Given the current climate our expectations were low, but this year’s Parkex has been our best event in the last ten years.”

Hot topics
During the show many hot topics were debated in the seminar theatres including two exclusive announcements from the British Parking Association. Following an interview by chief executive Patrick Troy on BBC Breakfast News, Keith Banbury OBE, Chair of the AOS Board, launched the scheme of sanctions for the Approved Operator Scheme and explained how the updates of legislation will affect the private off-street parking sector. Richard Hein, BPA President also announced the BPA’s Charter for Hospital Parking, designed to help and encourage NHS Trusts to provide parking management systems that are fair to all.
    
“I am delighted that Parkex 2010 broke all previous records for attendance. It demonstrates the parking sector’s journey to a parking profession and beyond. It was also the cross-section of attendees that was important – people representing the motorist and the consumer were there too proving that the profession is continuing to place the consumers’ needs at its heart,” commented Richard Hein.
    
Parkex 2010 had the support of four event partners: Bemrose Booth, Civica, Equita and NSL Services Group, representing leaders in the parking industry spectrum from ticketing and enforcement to consultancy and urban management solutions. The attendance exceeded the organisers’ expectations who are now looking ahead to another successful and even larger event at the co-located Parkex, Traffex and Street Design exhibition from 29-31 March 2011 at the NEC Birmingham.

Informative seminars
The extended free-to-attend Parkex seminar programme is now well regarded as the forum for the parking industry, where leading parking experts covered both on and off-street parking topics focusing on relevant, topical issues that are affecting the parking professional.
    
Each day the seminars were split into two themes: ‘Driving Issues’ and ‘Raising Standards’ which underpin the work of the BPA. Patrick Troy, Chairman of the BPA, opened the programme on Tuesday 2 March and the sessions that followed included spokespeople from leading parking organisations.
    
With numerous sessions each day, this year’s programme provided an in-depth look at a diverse range of topical issues, including:

• Environmental solutions for ticketing
• Pay by phone
• Hospital Parking
• Blue Badge Fraud
• Car Park Management from disrepair to distinction
• Baliff and enforcement challenges

Career Point
The Parkex ‘Career Point’ offered expert advice on training and career opportunities from the industry’s leading recruitment specialists. The Institute of Parking Professionals (IPP) was available to give advice on maintaining the high standards of professional skill, ability and integrity among individuals working in the UK parking and parking related industry.

New products launched
Over 120 exhibitors from the UK and overseas showed the very latest in parking management, parking equipment, parking software and innovations in parking enforcement, access control and car park services. Leading parking brands from the UK and around the world used Parkex as the launch-pad for their latest products and services.
    
Another Level Car Parks returned to Parkex to showcase its demountable modular deck Car Parking System, for hire or sale. The fully galvanized steel decks simply span existing car parks without central supports and normally there is no need for foundations, making this system incredibly quick to install. The car park is 100 per cent reusable, once removed there will be no evidence that such a structure had been in place.
    
Alpha Parking exhibitited the latest in its parking solutions for local authorities and the private sector. Visitors to their stand could benefit from a 5-minute free consultancy session where Alpha Parking answered any parking related questions regarding Civil Parking Enforcement, Traffic Orders, using ParkMap, optimising your car parks, training, Control Parking Zones, and signs and lines.
    
Buchanan Computing launched TraffWeb; an intuitive but powerful system for map-based internet and intranet access to orders and parking places for authority staff and public access. Buchanan Computing is the provider of ParkMap, the UK’s most widely used system for making traffic orders and managing on-street parking controls and moving vehicle restrictions, such as speed limits.
    
Designa, established supplier of ‘Pay on Foot’ barrier systems, featured its full PM ABACUS System, complete with fully integrated ANPR system and a SLIMPARK system. They also demonstrated its ‘MID software’ – a management information dashboard that enables the viewing of all important statistical data on one easy to read screen.
    
The latest ‘QED’ luminaire de-population battens were previewed by Energy Converservation Solutions. These battens exploit the higher light output of Triphosphor tube use made possible by ‘Save It Easy’ retro fit converters to reduce the number of fluorescent tubes in multi-tube luminaires – further increasing energy economy.
    
The Group Fast Park, provider of a unique patent pending parking deck that can afford to be permanent in a “turnkey” complete package, demonstrated its latest parking facilities installed in UK and throughout Europe. The original and innovative system is distributed at international airports, hospitals, local authorities, shopping malls and railways stations and can offer many different benefits including fast construction and minimum disruption to an ongoing parking operation and to users.
    
Liberty Services exhibited its full range of parking products and services including PCNs, carriers, permits and notebooks. To compliment its full back office processing system it will be launching a new document scanning and payment processing service in partnership with Documetric aimed at providing the most efficient and technologically advanced mail out, in service in the UK. Parkex also saw the launch of its P600 and P1000 pay and display machines supplied by Island, one of best available on the market with a comprehensive maintenance and repair service.
    
Metric Group Ltd showcased the latest developments in pay & display equipment with the Aura and Accent machines, new developments with the powerful WebASLAN back office software will be on show. Hardware solutions of note were be the wave & pay credit/debit card machine, ANPR integration and bank note acceptance. The technical team and sales staff from Metric were on hand to provide full demonstrations of all their equipment and back office solutions.

About the BPA
The British Parking Association (BPA) ise the largest professional association in Europe representing organisations in the parking and traffic management industry. These organisations are many and varied, and include manufacturers, car park operators, local authorities, health authorities, airports, railways, shopping centres, theme parks, consultants. Currently there are circa 650 members, equally split between the public and private sectors.