Due to the current health crisis (COVID-19) the municipality of Venlo has revised its priorities to low carbon accessibility.
The prioritized themes of the Venlo Expert Panel were:
1) Active Mobility: Cycling plan
2) Zero emission city logistics and E-mobility
3) Facilitate sustainable, low carbon, mobility forms in Venlo (Parking vision)
Expert Panel
The Expert Panel has been an important phase in the development of the new Parkingvision in Venlo.
Background
In order to change the mobility behaviour towards a low carbon perspective, the municipality realized that some steps should be undertaken:
- Step 1: Understanding who is the communications' target of the region
- Step 2: Understanding what motivates the different target groups
- Step 3: Understanding which measures/instruments can help to influence the different target groups
For step 1 and 2, the municipality has implemented a survey amongst its visitors to serve as an input for the Expert meeting, step 3.
The Expert Panel showed how measures/instruments can help influencing different target groups .
10 experts were invited to the Expert Panel - all of them from different fields:
- Strategic marketing
- Behavioral psychology
- Mobility
- Representation of entrepreneurs
- City marketing
- Parking management
- Mobility management
- German marketers (almost 60% of the "parking" visitors on a busy day in Venlo has a German nationality)
Structure
The Expert Panel was structured as follows:
- Preparation/Proposal round
- Presentation case - Why are we together/what is the challenge?
- Presentation Venlo (What does Venlo look like, characteristics, distribution of target groups (entrepreneurs, residents, visitors, employees)
- Observation/city tour to see actual challenges/situations
- Workshop, with 2 assignments
- Wrap up
In preparation, participants received a document outlining the parking situation in the center of Venlo, the problem definition and the various target groups and stakeholders who play a role in this.
The meeting started with sharing a picture of the situation at hand. The documentation that was sent in advance and the briefing during the meeting were distributed to give everyone the opportunity to obtain all the information.
Workshop
The workshop within the panel saw the group following up on 2 assignments:
- Assignment 1: Long list: Divided in 3 subgroups, each group chose 1 target group and came up with as much as possible solutions that would help this target group to "Park elsewhere" and "To come to Venlo via another mobility" and each group chose 1 or 2 solutions and presented them to the rest of the Experts
- Assignment 2: 2 subgroups divided themselves into advocates, who defend and promote the presented idea by identifying all the benefits, and critics, who undermine the solution/judge it as critically as possible. At the end, both groups had to finalize a common solution.
Outcomes and objectives
To provide real-time parking information along highways
Place a schematic representation of the city along the highways towards Venlo and display parking spaces, showing current occupancy and travel time to the location of these spaces, too .
To provide a peak-end experience
Make sure people who are on the desired parking location experience a “peak-end” experience that will prompt them to visit Venlo more often.
To differentiate the parking rates
There seems to be room to increase parking rates and thus influence parking behaviour. Higher parking fees may apply at the busiest places and at busiest times (1 or 2 euros per hour higher).
To provide a pick up point
German visitors often come from far away and once a month - additionally, thay do big errands, e.g. they buy large quantities of shelf food that is cheaper in the Netherlands. Shelf food is heavy and bulky, which calls for a parking spot close to the shop where this is bought.
To communicate in terms of scarcity
People are very sensitive to scarcity. The message “There are still 10 parking spaces in the center and 100 parking spaces along the edge of the center” is too pramatic. A message that would work better is: “You can still park. Go there now!" - a message that plays on drivers' fear of not beng able to fid a parking spot.
Next steps
The instruments that have been proposed during the Expert Panel will be presented in a survey to the wider audience - the survey will serve to collect feedback on the proposed instruments.