Parking lots can be much more than we imagine. And EMEL wants to imagine them beyond the car: how can these parks serve the city's population, offering them other services in the area of mobility and beyond? To find answers, EMEL is conducting a market survey.
At conference which took place in November in Porto, an urban anthropologist, Sónia Lavadinhosaid that one way to convince motorists to accept modal transformation and public space in cities is to improve their experience of parking and getting out of the car - that is, by transforming the areas near the parking lots and also these infrastructures, immediately offering a desirable city experience and making it desirable to ditch the car.
Parking lots can be much more than we imagine. And EMEL wants to imagine them beyond the car: how these parks can serve the city's population, offering them other services in the area of mobility but not onlyand promoting alternatives to individual car use? In order to diversify the functions that parking lots can offer, EMEL is promoting a market sounding with the objective of identifying, together with the companies, solutions that can improve not only the experience of those who use these parks, but also contribute positively to the city's mobility system, for example, at the logistics level.
"With this market consultation, EMEL not only reinforces its position of openness, dialogue and transparency to collect contributions from its community, but also demonstrates its commitment to add value to the city of Lisbon", says Carlos Silva, President of EMEL, in a communiqué. "There are services that we already know can enhance the experience of parkers in our parks, but we want to understand how we can offer a more complete experience both to customers as well as to the city. Our parks can be much more than parking spaces, they can be hubs of mobility and services, and we want to understand if the market is also willing to help in this change." Currently, EMEL's parks already offer some functions in addition to car parking. They allow charging electric cars, through the Leve system, and also the secure parking of bicycles, through the BiciParks network.
Kiosks for buying or loading public transportation tickets? Information points for nearby stops and stations and upcoming departures? Charging services for bicycles and electric scooters? Shared soft mobility stations? Urban micro-logistics centers? Online parcel pickup points? EMEL is looking for services that can be offered to park users (who can also be bicycle users) and that can either add value to their trip or contribute to the "promotion of alternative ways to mobility by individual car or for less dependence on the car". The Lisbon mobility company also wants, through its parking lots, to promote "a more efficient mobility system in the city"working in "urban logistics solutions".
Companies that are interested and have solutions to show are therefore invited to answer a formby providing some information about these products or services. The invitation is addressed to all types of companies that have mature solutions, i.e. that are already available on the market. Experimental or prototype solutions are out of the scope of this consultation. The form will be available until June 9th. It should be noted that this market consultation arises from the intention to conduct a consultation process that ensures the principles of transparency and equal treatment, enabling all interested companies to make their contribution. However, this consultation is not a procurement procedure and the reply to the questionnaire does not result in any binding obligation between EMEL and the entities that submit their contribution.
This market sounding work is an initiative developed under the project VoxPopand is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through Urban Innovative Actions (UIA - Urban Innovative Actions).
