Welcome and thanks

A welcome to our ever-growing list of members and thank you to those many renewing members – your support of the Association is appreciated, and we look forward to seeing you at one of our events soon! If you’re not a member, and would like to join us, please join online here.

A reminder too of all the great benefits to Parking Australia members including the unlimited number of staff we invite from each member firm to join us at our networking events, for example. You can also pop your news, events, and jobs across and we will add to the Parking Australia website.

Of note this month:

National Roads & Traffic

Parking Australia thanks all our members and colleagues from around the industry for the great interest and positive feedback regarding our partnership with the National Roads & Traffic Expo for this year’s conference, taking place on October 30-31, 2024, at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre.

In collaboration with National Roads & Traffic, we are extending a special 10% discount on exhibition and sponsorship prices to all Parking Australia members. This partnership not only strengthens our ties within the parking sector but also provides valuable opportunities for networking and showcasing innovative solutions.

Space within the Parking Zone is limited, and speaking slots in the parking stream are in high demand. If you are interested in booking a spot for yourself or your colleagues, please contact Hoss Esmaeilzadeh (02 8908 8512/ hoss.esmaeilzadeh@terrapinn.com) at your earliest convenience to secure your place.

Parking Industry Awards

Book the night! The Parking Awards will be held as a gala dinner on Wednesday 30 October in Melbourne. Following member feedback, we’re currently finalising the criteria and logistics for awards. Nominations will open in the coming weeks, at the same time as available sponsorship opportunities.

Melbourne networking event 29 May – thank you

What’s coming down the road – evolution (or revolution) in parking and mobility technology was the topic for our networking event on Wednesday 29 May. Our excellent panel consisting of Josh Bakhbakhi (CAVU), Jason Marks (EasyPark ANZ), Jocelyn Chiew (City of Melbourne), and Lena Zaltash (Melbourne Airport), moderated by Parking Australia Vice President Mosstyn Howell, looked at the trends they’re seeing locally and overseas. The session include Q&A and interactive audience discussion. Thank you to the many colleagues who attended (videos and key lessons from the day are on the member-only section of the website under Resources); and also, to our kind sponsors, CAVU and EasyPark ANZ.

WA networking breakfast event 19 June / Perth member visits

Our thanks to the nearly 60 colleagues who got up early last week and joined our panel members Peter McUtchen, PARKD Group, Mike Emery, City of Cockburn, and Jagroop Gill, Wevolt for a great session on the future of parking (planning and technology). Our first WA event in some time saw councils, universities, suppliers and colleagues from across the wider parking, transport, and planning communities come together in the city for the breakfast. Our thanks to Wilson Parking for their sponsorship of the event (and ongoing support of the Association as a valued, Platinum member), as well as the entire Wilson Perth team for their on-site support of the event and hosting me throughout the week.

At that event, as we did the preceding event in Melbourne, we acknowledged the contribution of the late Glen Holdsworth. Fellow Life Member Larry Schneider shared his reflections with the audience as we paid tribute to Glen’s commitment to the Association. Thank you, Larry, for allowing us to share your thoughts.

A note of appreciation too to the many members who I was able to visit during the week – a long list of valued colleagues. We’ll aim for further visits in the future for those I was unable to catch up with this time around. The week in Perth demonstrated the strong community we have there – and across the country – and we thank everyone for making the event the success it was.

Upcoming events – sponsor opportunities

Adelaide, 28 August. Topic: Driving excellence in customer service – lessons learned from paths well-travelled.

Sydney 27 November: Topic: The big picture – where does parking fit in the broader policy and planning landscape? UNSW, Kensington.

If you’re interested in being either a sponsor (Venue, Major Event, or Networking Session) at these forthcoming Parking Australia events (noting our thanks to the UNSW for hosting us on 27 November), please pop us a line.  Sponsorship packages are bespoke and developed in collaboration with the firms and are based on a range of factors including for example links to the topic, relevance to the audience/market, and ongoing engagement with members.  Sponsor interest is open and can be provided to CEO Jeremy Irvine at any time within the principle of first come, first served.

Parking Australia profiled

Parking Australia’s President, Angelique Mentis and the Association more broadly featured recently in our British colleagues’ Parking News magazine. The article as a PDF is here Parking News June 2024 Global view. 

Angelique also spoke at the recent EV Infrastructure Summit in Sydney. Click here for the video (the session is the third from the top of the page on the left – as viewed on a computer).

2024 AGM 

As per the outline on the AGM page, the 2024 AGM will be held on 27 November in person in Sydney and online. Nominations open on 5 September, closing on 26 September. If elections are required, voting will open on 8 October, closing three weeks later on 29 October. This format of three weeks for nominations, and three weeks for elections (if needed) will be the norm for our AGMs going forward.

Engagement

Our member briefing this month includes an advocacy briefing, and more news.

Members can read more on these matters and other Parking Australia member news by logging into the member portal.

MORE FOR MEMBERS – Log on to view member content.

This edition includes news on our events, engagement and, sadly, the passing of Parking Australia Life Member Glen Holdsworth.

Glen Holdsworth

First up in this edition, we note the passing last week of Parking Australia Life Member Glen Holdsworth. Glen’s leadership over many years was instrumental to Parking Australia being what it is today. Glen served on the Association Committee for 20 years; 10 of these as President. You can read more about his important contribution here.

I trust this finds you well and that you had a relaxing Easter break. 

Park, Lunch and Learn 

First up, we’re pleased to announce a new Parking Australia event, to be held in Sydney on Wednesday 1 May from 12.00pm – 2.00pm at The Michael Crouch Innovation Centre, Hilmer building UNSW Kensington Campus – Park, Lunch and Learn: EV Charging – Council Case Studies.  Thank you to the University of NSW for hosting us.

I trust you’re well. We’ve recently announced our 2024 calendar of networking events – pop them into your diaries now! In addition to our regular schedule of Brisbane (February – see below), Melbourne (29 May), Adelaide (28 August), and Sydney (27 November), we’re looking forward to seeing members at our events in Perth (19 June) and Hobart (18 September).

Our event next Wednesday 28 February, ‘Women in Parking’ at the scenic QUT Gardens Point campus from 3.00pm-6.00pm, features amazing leaders: Yolanda Torrisi, who manages Care Park’s public relations portfolio; Orikan’s Chief Growth Officer, Tabitha Mitchell; Secure Parking’s Head of Service AU/NZ & Philippines, Cassandra Miers; and Nikki Clements, who has spent two decades with Sunshine Coast Council (Council and SenSen last year won the Excellence in Technology and Innovation On-Street category at the Parking Industry Awards). The panel will be moderated by Parking Australia’s 2023 Young Achiever of the Year and new Board director, Emily Carson.

I’m looking forward to hearing from our panel on their reflections, experiences, and insights; a fantastic panel. It will also be great to see so many colleagues from organisations such as local government (Brisbane, Moreton Bay, and Sunshine Coast, for example), as well as colleagues from operators (including Ace Parking, Care Park, First Parking, PriPark, Secure Parking, Wilson Parking), and a variety of colleagues across the wider parking community including EasyPark, Orikan, ParkAid, QIC, SKIDATA, UbiPark and many others.

A reminder that this event is free for members. We’d love to see people from the wider parking community join us for a great afternoon of reflection, learning, and networking. Thank you to First Parking for their support as Major Sponsor, and for QUT for again hosting us.

Coming up

If you’ve ideas for topics, speakers, and/or your firm would like to sponsor one of our networking events during the year, please reach out. We are open to topic ideas, grateful for recommendations of good speakers, and always happy to talk with potential sponsors.

Looking ahead, Parking Australia will be at ITS Australia’s Roads, Tolling & Technology 2024 event in Brisbane on 20-21 March with a presentation from Parking Australia Board Director, Daniel Hitchcock, and me on parking insights and innovations. You can view the current program and register here; we look forward to seeing members and colleagues from across the wider parking and transport world there.

Thank you to our members

A reminder too of all the great benefits to Parking Australia members including the unlimited number of staff we invite from each member firm to join us at our networking events, for example.

We thank our many renewing members; we’ve got some exciting developments in train for our website and member platform and look forward to bringing this to you during the year.

Of course, if you’re not a member, and you’d like to join us, please contact us or join online here.

Engagement

Much has been happening in Parking Australia and across the wider parking and transport community. By way of brief recap, just before Christmas, we saw changes to the government in Queensland, and wrote on the day he was sworn in to new Minister for Transport, Bart Mellish to continue the progress the important matters in Queensland. Also shortly before Christmas, the New South Wales Auditor-General’s Report into the Procurement of services for the Park’nPay app was released, which we provided a media release on. And recently, has been covered extensively in the media, the Australian Government released a proposed New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.

Members can read more on these matters and other Parking Australia member news by logging into the member portal.

MORE FOR MEMBERS – Log on to view member content.

“Where did the year go?!” is a refrain that I’ve been hearing much lately – and using myself as I step back and reflect on my first few months with Parking Australia and also the association’s year itself.

We concluded our events schedule recently with a great panel on AI and data analytics. It’s a topic that many industries are looking at, and the insights from our panellists Jessica Christiansen-Franks from Neighbourlytics, Orikan’s Babu Krishnamoorthy, and international guest Mexx Uljee from SpecifAI were timely and well-received.

The discussion as always was positive, thought-provoking, and informative and in my short time with the association, the sharing, reflecting, and learning at these events has been great.

Thank you to our panellists and moderator, Parking Australia Director Gary Byrne for their time, thoughts, and forward-thinking focuses. The video is on our member-only website under Presentations; photos from the event are on our Facebook page.

Looking to 2024, we’re keen to consider topics of interest to the wider sector. If you’ve thoughts or ideas, please feel free to pop them across here.

We sincerely thank all our sponsors, supporters, and guests for their support in all our events this year which have ranged from cybersecurity, EV charging, and finding the balance between various stakeholder needs.

A highlight of our events is meeting colleagues including those many people who join us for the first time at these events. The collegiality of colleagues is a feature of our events and the buzz of conversations and post the formal sessions is a testament to the positivity and practical focus of people’s interests.

Our Board and team wish all Parking Australia members and stakeholders the best for the festive season. We look forward to working with you again in 2024.

Members can log in to read more on our AGM and Board News, 2024 AGM timelines, and an extensive engagement update.

MORE FOR MEMBERS – Log on to view member content.