01Case study · Parking operators
Charging in a car park where the average stay is four days
Airport parking inverts every assumption in charging: the dwell time is enormous, and that is the problem rather than the opportunity.
4 days
Average stay
18
AC bays, 2 DC
24×7
Arrivals and departures
The deployment
Profile
- Mix
- Mostly AC for long stays, DC for quick top-ups near the terminal
- Drivers
- One-time visitors, almost never repeat within a month
- Staff
- Parking operations, available around the clock
The problem
What was in the way
- 01A car parked for four days finished charging in six hours and then blocked the bay for the rest of the stay.
- 02Drivers are one-time visitors, so an app install was never going to happen.
- 03Charging revenue had to be separable from parking revenue for the concession agreement.
- 04Faults at 3am needed handling by parking staff, not a charging specialist.
The approach
What was actually done
Each step names the mechanism rather than the outcome, so you can judge whether it would transfer to your situation.
Price the bay, not only the energy
A per-minute component after charging completes prices the occupancy rather than the electricity, which is the actual scarce resource in a long-stay car park.
Terms shown before the session
The idle terms appear on the same screen as the price before the driver commits, which is the difference between a returning customer and a complaint at the barrier.
Nothing to install
The QR flow runs in the phone browser, so a first-time driver at 5am with a flight to catch pays and charges without an app store detour.
Separable revenue and round-the-clock scope
Charging revenue is reported separately for the concession, and parking staff hold operate rights on their own site so a 3am reset does not wait for morning.
The outcome
What changed
- Bays turning over instead of being held for the length of a trip.
- First-time drivers charging without an install.
- Charging revenue reportable separately from parking.
- Overnight faults handled by staff already on site.
Platform
What was used
Tariffs & pricing plans
Per-kWh, per-minute, flat-fee and time-of-day pricing, with idle fees, driver-group rates and tariff groups across sites.
Driver app & QR charging
A mobile web charging flow that starts from the QR sticker, plus native apps for the drivers who come back.
Roles & access control
Role-based access for your staff, station groups for territory restrictions, and an audit trail for everything that changes.
Analytics & reporting
Dashboards and exports for energy delivered, session mix, utilisation, downtime and revenue across every level of the network.
Would the same approach work for you?
Tell us your constraints and we will say honestly which parts of this transfer and which do not.