Cities are running out of room. Not someday - now, block by block. Take Amsterdam. It is growing rapidly, while roads are being dug up for repairs, space is being made for trees and climate resilience, and new heating pipes are being laid for the energy transition. All of it worthwhile. All of it competing for the same scarce resource: public space. And mobility is usually first in line to give some of it back.
That pressure is driving a quiet shift across European cities: moving parking off the street and into managed hubs.
Get it right and you free up surface space for people and greenery.
Get it wrong and you simply move the problem elsewhere - while making life harder for residents.
The difference between those two outcomes is what matters most.
Here is the uncomfortable truth every planner already knows: take away someone’s on-street parking and they will not thank you for it. It does not matter how compelling the climate case is. If you used to park outside your door and now have to walk to a hub, it feels like a loss before it feels like a benefit.
So relocating parking is not enough. The new option has to be so seamless that people barely notice the change - and then quietly begin to prefer it. That means digital access that simply works, clear guidance to an available space, no queues, and none of that "will there even be room when I get there?" When the hub is easier than on-street parking ever was, adoption stops being a struggle. That is what intelligent access is really for: turning a place you put up with into part of a journey you would actively choose.
The clearest example sits beside one of the largest event areas in the Netherlands. The Johan Cruyff Arena area handles huge peaks - around 50 to 60 event days a year, each lasting five or six hours. The rest of the time, it is largely empty. And now tens of thousands of new homes are being built right beside it.
That is the challenge in a single picture. You need capacity for peak demand, but you cannot allow that footprint to lie dormant for the other 300-odd days of the year. The answer is not more asphalt - it is making smarter use of what is already there. And it is not just theory: the ArenA already operates its 2,400 spaces using network logic that takes the car park out of general parking use on event days, allowing it to serve as a smart Park & Ride facility for the rest of the time without adding to match-day congestion. One adaptable hub is better than several static car parks.
It helps to think in terms of three connected layers.
Intelligent access removes friction at the barrier.
Intelligent parking matches supply and demand in real time, directing drivers straight to a space instead of having them circle the block.
And intelligent behaviour is what those two layers enable - people who arrive, park and move on without adding to the chaos, because the system has quietly guided them towards the easiest choice.
None of this is technology for technology’s sake. It all serves one thing that cities and operators both want: urban flow. Keep people moving, keep space usable, and keep the city liveable as it grows.
The most useful first step is to connect parking with traffic management. As Willem van Heijningen, a strategist in the City of Amsterdam's Department of Mobility and Public Space, puts it, the goal is that "as people approach the city, they are immediately directed to their parking space… so they do not drive aimlessly through the city or the event area searching for a space."
Eliminate the search, and you eliminate a large share of the congestion, frustration and emissions that come with it.
Cities own the space, the signage and the mandate. Partners provide the digital layer that makes a hub feel effortless.
That is where we come in: SKIDATA's Mobility Hub turns parking into a connected front door - one digital touchpoint for parking, charging, public transport and shared mobility - while SKIDATA Connect brings on-street and off-street parking together in a single system.
In Belgium, that same backbone supports 89 Park & Ride sites and 23,000 spaces, managed by a team of six. Handle the transition carefully, make the journey seamless, and the hub becomes what a crowded city truly needs: not somewhere to store cars, but a front door that keeps the whole place moving.
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