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Q-Park wants to engage with all layers of society. It’s part of being both diverse and inclusive. The Student Award brings young people into the equation. They are the future and they have a lot to offer.

What is the Q-Park Student Award?

Together with the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Q-Park established the Student Award in 2014. Prizes are awarded for bachelor or master projects related to parking and sustainable mobility challenges. Theses may be written in English or Dutch, at a college or university in Europe.

The Award aims to increase understanding about parking and mobility. Students have a fresh outlook and can help unravel some of the mysteries of urban mobility. When setting up the award, we sought to bridge the considerable gap between research and practitioners in the sector.

Thought Leadership event and Student Awards

The Student Awards are held annually, usually in November. This gives recently graduated students time to submit their work. Besides being an informal industry networking event, it is also an opportunity to hear what thought leaders have to say about the future of mobility and parking.

In recent years presentations were given by:

• Carlo van de Weijer, Managing Director of Eindhoven AI Systems Institute (EAISI) at TU Eindhoven and a smart mobility expert talked about Mobility post-Corona and gave a brief run-down of trends and some new thought-provoking insights into the future of mobility.

• Frank Quix, Managing Director of Q&A Insights & Consultancy and a retail expert talked about shopping and behaviour. He had some interesting insights for us regarding retail trends on the route back to (the new) normal.

• Larissa Suzuki, Technical Director, Office of the CTO at Google, gave an engaging presentation about Smart Mobility – Embracing Culture and Innovation. In her talk she emphasised the need for creating inclusive mobility solutions and urged urban planners to work from use cases for developing mobility facilities and systems.

Understanding trends that impact parking

As a sustainable mobility partner, Q-Park has welcomed the considerable increase in parking and mobility research. The theses submitted over the years for the Q-Park Student Award demonstrate, practitioners and researchers can come closer to generate new knowledge which combines both research rigour and new ideas for practitioners to tackle current and future challenges.

Parking is and will continue to be an essential link in the mobility chain. In the coming years, the sector will continue to be influenced by many trends and developments as well as new players and changing partnerships. Opportunities in the parking sector are being created by:

• sustainability and liveability needs: reducing emissions and ensuring urban accessibility;

• socioeconomic trends: ageing population, further urbanisation, e-shopping;

• technological developments: electric and smart cars;

• various Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) applications.

Understanding these trends and their potential impact on parking is key for the future of the sector. Validated research performed by applied science and academic students can make valuable contributions to this knowledge.

Thank you students and supervisors

The Student Award would not be possible without the students and their supervisors. We thank and congratulate all students who have submitted their research for the Q-Park Student Award over the years as well as other students who have actively contributed to create new knowledge for the parking sector. We hope that many more students will conduct research on parking and mobility related themes.

We are also truly grateful to all the supervisors who have helped the students to conduct their research and to graduate. We hope you will keep feeding the Q-Park Student Award.

2022 Student Award winners

The 2022 Student Award winners were announced that the Student Award event in Maastricht on 3 November 2022. The winners are:

• Pieter De Smet, University of Antwerp: Car-free households, an analysis of car-sharing in Belgium

• Femke Herben, Erasmus University: The impact of residential urbanism and ageing of young adults on car travel demand in the Netherlands

• Renske van ‘t Veer, TU Delft: Vehicle-owners’ intention to use Mobility-as-a-Service

Award collection

We have collated the winning Q-Park Student Awards since 2014 into a separate publication. The winning theses are grouped together in the themes:

• Parking demand

• Parking behaviour

• Mobility

• Electrification

You can access our Student Award collection here. Are you interested in working together with Q-Park and advancing knowledge about parking and mobility? Find out more about becoming a partner!