Photo’s: Q-Park nv
BISS aims at creating meaningful research that is of value to the industry. Therefore, we closely work together with companies on their daily problems, like Q-Park.
Sharing thoughts
It all started when Theo Thuis, Managing Director Innovation at Q-Park BV, and Prof. Jos Lemmink from Maastricht University met at an event and shared their thoughts on the future of smart services for the mobility and parking sector.
To fulfil Q-Park’s overall goal of higher occupancy rates and capacity utilization, the company needs to know who their customers are and why they come to park in a certain location during a specific time of day or week.
Project approach
Firstly, we analysed who frequently uses a car and for what reasons. Through the close partnership of BISS and CBS we were able to get access to CBS’s annual travel survey data, which give a comprehensive overview of the current travel behaviour in the Netherlands.
The different methods and forms of analyses used by our two researchers Hannah Schmitt, PhD student in urban mobility behaviour, and Mark Graus, assistant professor in data science of decision making at Maastricht University, gave a number of interesting insights. An extensive machine learning approach led to the conclusion that travel distance and trip duration are the only direct influences of choice for mode of transportation. The sociodemographic features of the observed people have only indirect effects. Secondly, the data analysis explored a number of information variables on the observed people to see which i.e. age groups are more prone to car usage. Based on these results, the next steps aim to build a segmentation model of existing and potential customers using demographic features and behavioural characteristics.
What’s next
For the future, Q-Park and BISS will continue to work together on smart parking topics. They will make use of the principles and processes of service design thinking to provide additional value to Q-Park’s customers. Also, they will research the use and application of new technologies like artificial intelligence.
