Automate parking management like Alstom

About

Leading societies to a low carbon future, Alstom develops and markets mobility solutions that provide the sustainable foundations for the future of transportation. Alstom’s products portfolio ranges from high-speed trains, metros, monorail, trams and e-buses to integrated systems, customised services, infrastructure, signalling and digital mobility solutions. Headquartered in France, Alstom is now present in 70 countries and employs 75,000 people. Alstom’s ANZ HQ is located in the North Ryde business district just outside of Sydney. They currently have roughly 170 employees working from this office.

Problem

As a leader in sustainable mobility, Alstom strongly encourages their staff to take public transport to work. However, they also recognise that for some employees, geography means this is not always an option. Alstom’s ANZ HQ car park had 60 spaces, split between two lots. One surface level car park and a larger underground area. The large underground car park was assigned based on seniority, with key employees given fixed usage of certain parking spots. However, due to the nature of Alstom’s work many of these employees were often out on site-visits or with clients. Even though their spaces were empty there was no easy way for these spaces to be used by other people. Everyday the office manager was tasked with manually contacting owners of empty spaces to find out if their space was going to be used and at what times. Then as other staff arrived at the office, she would manually direct them to available spaces

“I would spend hours everyday helping people find somewhere to park. I was pretty much becoming a parking attendant. It was incredibly time consuming and incredibly inefficient”
- Julie Winter, Office Manager, Alstom ANZ

The surface level spaces were available on a first come, first served basis. However, this had quickly turned into a daily space race. Staff were starting to come to work earlier and earlier just to get a space. This was having a very negative impact on people with young families who simply couldn’t get a space at work because they had to do school runs As a result, staff with young families were often left using paid on-street parking at their own expense which was causing frustration for these employees

Solution

Alstom rolled out Wayleadr’s availability & allocation features to automate and optimize employee parking.

Senior management retained their assigned spots but could now release them for general use through the app. Other staff requested parking a week in advance, with provisions for emergency use.

Some staff had motorbikes and cars, Wayleadr allows staff to indicate which vehicle they will be using on a given day and directs staff to the relevant parking space, ensuring that spaces are put to optimal use.

Alstom integrated Wayleadr with their access gate, ensuring all access to the car park was managed through the app which ensured all aspects of employee parking can be managed in one place.

“The car park now manages itself most days. The car park is almost always full now and employee satisfaction has increased”
- Julie Winter, Office Manager, Alstom ANZ

Results

Since implementing Wayleadr, Alstom has seen over 48,000 booking requests, with user satisfaction scores consistently between 7 and 8 out of 10, despite a 150% parking demand on peak days. On average, 12 spaces are released daily by employees for others, significantly enhancing parking availability and utilization. This automated system has freed up approximately 65 working days per year for the office administrator, allowing focus on more value-driven tasks.

Key Benefits

• Achieved 100% parking occupancy, even with high demand, without manual interventions.

• Saved the office administrator roughly 2 hours per day, equating to 65 working days annually.

• Maintained high user satisfaction scores despite the high demand-to-space ratio.

• Enabled equitable and transparent parking allocation, improving overall employee morale.

• Automated parking management, leading to a self-sustaining car park system.

Alstom Sydney has 55 spaces available and 200 staff who want regular parking access. Unsurprisingly, with 4 users to every 1 space, parking was a contentious issue in the office, it had a direct impact on employee satisfaction and company morale, so much so that Alstom had completely shut down any parking access before they found Wayleadr.

In the three years that Wayleadr has been in place, there have been over 48,000 booking requests by Alstom employees. However, more impressively even with a sustained 150% parking demand for parking on peak days, meaning a third of users get no parking on any given day, user satisfaction scores have remained in the range of 7-8 out of 10. Wayleadr’s allocation has ensured that parking is equaly given to groups of employees even with the high demand. The value of giving employees transparency, predictability and more equitable sharing of parking over the week is self-evident, compared to restricting who has parking access or leaving it as a race to park.

An important element to Alstom’s parking policy was how to account for partner and executive level employees who traditionally had ownership over parking spaces. The allocation of these spaces when they were not using them had led to, according to the administrator, them “becoming a parking attendant. It was incredibly time consuming and incredibly inefficient”. Wayleadr’s ability to allow for certain users to be given an assigned space and to release it for open availability, and booking by other staff, has resolved and automated this entire process.

Over the last three years, on average 12 spaces are being released by employees for other employees to make use of. More employees have the benefit of parking, the space is getting maximum utilisation and return for the company, and the administrator can dedicate all the gained time to more value driven work. With 2 hours a day given back to the admin, over a year that equates to 65 working days of time to use elsewhere.