An underrated value driver: how your property's car park becomes a profit centre

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While asset and property managers invest millions in smart energy systems and digital tenant portals, the car park outside the door usually stays exactly what it was twenty years ago: an analogue, maintenance-heavy drain on costs. Rattling barriers, lost paper tickets, manually maintained lists of long-term parkers and the weekly call about unauthorised parking – all of it ties up resources that are needed elsewhere.

At the same time, the figures show how profoundly the industry is changing. According to a digitalisation study by EY Real Estate and the Zentraler Immobilien Ausschuss (2021), more than 90 per cent of decision-makers in the property industry agree: without end-to-end digitalisation there is no long-term viability. That applies to one area that has long been overlooked as well: parking management – a factor with a direct effect on a property's operating costs and revenues.

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How a cost centre turns into a profit centre

The answer to high operating costs and growing administrative effort is a digital, barrier-free solution – whether the asset is an office property, a retail unit, a shopping centre or a mixed-use site.

Instead of mechanical barriers, a licence plate-based infrastructure handles enforcement, operation and administration in a single system. The result: an administration-heavy cost centre becomes a profit centre that actively contributes to your property's financial performance.

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A property's value stands or falls with its net operating income, the NOI. Lowering ongoing operating costs (OPEX) while increasing revenues raises the overall value of the asset. This is precisely where a digital parking system comes in.

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Cutting ongoing operating costs

Mechanical barrier systems require expensive, recurring maintenance. Ticket printers jam, paper tickets create waste, and outages cause tailbacks. A digital parking system needs neither barriers nor tickets – which removes the high running costs they create. The licence plate becomes the ticket, and scanners capture it in a data protection-compliant way on entry and exit.

How large that lever can be becomes clear when you look at commercial practice: annual service charges for commercial space average more than 90,000 euros, and according to a recent analysis 84 per cent of these statements contain errors (Mineko, 2026). Digitalising your parking areas creates transparency over one of the largest items in that calculation and automates enforcement at the same time: the system measures parking duration and checks automatically on exit whether payment has been made or a valid authorisation exists. Tenants manage their rented spaces themselves and billing runs fully automatically – administrative effort drops noticeably.

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Managing revenue and occupancy actively

A digital parking system delivers efficient operation without barriers and without additional staff. Continuous enforcement significantly reduces the number of non-payers, and flexible payment options raise the payment rate further.

Because every parking transaction is recorded digitally, anonymised usage data is generated – a basis for well-founded decisions on site optimisation. Tariffs can be set dynamically, for example by time of day or occupancy: when demand is high, revenue per space rises; when occupancy is low, lower prices attract more parkers and turn idle capacity into additional revenue. A barrier-free system also prevents tailbacks at peak times and increases throughput.

Where areas stand empty entirely for certain periods – at shopping centres often overnight – there is further potential to unlock: the spaces can be let during those hours, for example to local residents. The effort involved stays low, because users manage their parking permissions themselves.

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What this means for the value of your property

Lower operating costs, more paying users, additional revenue from otherwise idle periods: every one of these improvements acts on the same figure – your property's operating result. And a better operating result is exactly what determines an asset's value in the end.

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Use the potential right outside your door

When properties are digitalised, parking areas are often treated as a side issue – yet they can be modernised with manageable effort and act directly on key financial metrics. Digital, barrier-free parking management lowers operating costs for the long term, reduces administrative effort and unlocks additional revenue potential. That feeds directly into the property's value development and creates real added value for tenants, users and investors.

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