Shared car park: how it works and the benefits for landlord!

Today, many companies share the same building, and therefore the same car park. Some landlords present this concept as an ideal solution: space optimisation, financial savings, greater comfort for employees, etc.

But in reality, the picture is often less rosy. With under-utilised spaces, allocation conflicts and a lack of suitable management tools, shared parking can quickly become a source of frustration rather than a solution.

The real challenge is not just to share spaces, but to put in place a clear, fair and efficient system for all companies and their employees.

In this article, we take a look at how shared car park currently works, point out the common limitations and show how this constraint can be turned into a real advantage for businesses.

Shared car park in a multi-occupant building: how does it work?

The concept of shared car park seems simple: several companies located in the same building use a common space to park their employees. On paper, everyone wins. But in practice, things get more complicated.

Each company has its own needs: some have few employees, others many. Some have flexible working hours & occasional visitors, others don’t.

In most cases, each company has a set number of parking spaces based on the surface area of its offices, so the lessor generally allocates one badge per space for access control. However, this system no longer works: with teleworking and more flexible needs, companies no longer want each badge to correspond rigidly to a space.

Without clear rules and management tools, parking spaces quickly become a source of conflict: some employees find free parking spaces in the morning, but others never do, while some spaces remain unused all day because they are allocated.

So shared parking is not just about « putting everyone in the same space ». It’s about designing an intelligent system that takes into account :

- The number of spaces available and how they are distributed.
- The specific needs of each company.
- The flexibility and fairness required for shifting working hours and visitors.
- Transparency and simplicity in booking and using the spaces.

Properly designed, it becomes a real lever for comfort and efficiency.

Landlords: how can you set up a shared car park in your building?

As you will have realised, there’s a lot more to this concept than just opening the car park gates to all companies. For it to really work, you need rigorous organisation and the right tools.

1. Make an inventory of your spaces & allocate them fairly.

The first step is to find out how many spaces are available in your car park and how they will be allocated. Without this, and in a multi-tenant building, conflicts quickly arise: some companies complain about a lack of spaces, while others leave some unoccupied.

The result is tension between tenants, repeated complaints and the impression that the building is being badly managed.

For example, a company with 50 employees has 20 allocated spaces. An inventory shows that only 12 spaces are occupied on certain days, because several employees work remotely. The remaining 8 spaces can be used temporarily by neighbouring companies, so that they do not remain empty.

This inventory phase is crucial: it lays the foundations for a fair & efficient system, avoiding conflicts and ensuring that all companies really benefit from the car park.

2. Digitalise car park management & make reservations easier.

Even with an accurate inventory and well thought-out allocation of spaces, managing a car park (by hand) between several companies can quickly become a headache.

In the absence of a tool, the system remains fragile: Excel spreadsheets, email exchanges, phone calls & simple tables displayed at the entrance that quickly lead to errors. Sooner or later, your tenants will start complaining.

At a time when there are digital solutions (such as Sharvy) that make it easier to :

- Reserving & declaring unused spaces: employees of each company can reserve their space in advance, and indicate that an allocated space will not be used on a specific day. This information allows other companies and employees to take advantage of free spaces, maximising car park occupancy.

- Fair allocation of spaces: one of the strong points of the Sharvy solution is the automatic and fair allocation of spaces according to the needs and quotas of each company. For example, Sharvy’s algorithm works by allocating spaces first to those who have used them the least over the last 60 days. This sliding system takes into account the number of spaces allocated, the status of the user (holder/requestor) and their level of priority (on a scale from 0 to 100), to ensure that each employee benefits from a fair distribution over the long term.

- Real-time monitoring & notifications: Parking Management solutions such as Sharvy also provide instant visibility of occupancy, anticipate peaks in demand and provide objective evidence in the event of a dispute.

- Flexible management: the lessor can choose to manage the entire car park itself, or let each company manage its space independently, with its own priority and management rules. This modularity means that the car park can be adapted to the specific needs of each player and avoids conflicts arising from differences in organisation.

With a tool like this, you can transform the car park into a fluid, transparent and fair service that limits conflicts and reinforces your image as a caring and professional landlord.

3. Establish rules & good practice.

Note that even with a good management tool, rules are still essential. They clarify the rights and priorities of each tenant company.

Start by defining priority criteria. Certain categories of employee should have preferential access to the car park, such as people with reduced mobility (PRM), pregnant women and car-poolers. These priorities can be set directly in the solution, enabling the algorithm to respect them automatically before redistributing the other spaces.

At the same time, you can establish strategic occupancy rules : for example, favouring the complete filling of a floor before moving on to the next, or reserving a permanent quota for visitors. These practices make traffic flow more smoothly, limit unnecessary crossings and make day-to-day management easier.

Finally, encourage your tenants to declare free spaces when they are not in use (teleworking, business trips, holidays). These spaces can be redistributed automatically, maximising the occupancy rate and demonstrating the efficiency of your management.

The advantages of shared car park for tenant companies & you, the landlord.

1. For companies using shared car park.

In a traditional system, each company has a fixed quota of spaces, often defined in the lease.

The problem? These spaces remain empty whenever an employee is teleworking or travelling… while just a few metres away, another company is desperately short of spaces. The result: half-full car parks and employees forced to park outside, sometimes at their own expense.

Shared car park breaks down this rigid logic. Thanks to a precise inventory and a digital solution, unused spaces are automatically reallocated to those who need them.

The other advantage is predictability. In a traditional system, everyone plays the « first come, first served game ». With sharing and advance booking, employees know whether they have a place at the latest the day before. This reduces stress, improves punctuality and makes day-to-day life much smoother.

Lastly, shared car park makes it possible to incorporate fair criteria that fixed systems cannot manage: giving priority to car-poolers, pregnant women, people with reduced mobility and employees travelling from afar. In practical terms, this avoids frustrations and reinforces the perception of fairness, which is rarely the case in a traditional system where certain employees are « » privileged simply because they have a fixed parking space.

2. For you, the building landlord.

The advantages are just as significant. In a traditional model, you allocate a fixed number of spaces to each company. On paper, it’s simple. But in practice, it’s a source of inefficiency and tension, as we said earlier.

Some companies don’t use all their spaces, while others are sorely lacking. You end up with areas of the car park that are empty, while tenants complain that they don’t have enough capacity.

With a shared car park, you can turn this headache into a selling point. Parking spaces are no longer allocated on a company-by-company basis, but optimised on a building-by-building basis.

For example, in a building with 5 companies, if one of them only uses 50% of its spaces on certain days, these spaces become available for the others, without you needing to create any new infrastructure. You go from a car park perceived as a constraint to a differentiating service.

The other benefit is reduced friction. In a fixed system, you are often the arbiter of conflicts: « our neighbour has too many spaces », « we don’t have enough », « we should review the distribution ». With a digital tool & a fair algorithm, transparency is total and management is virtually automated. Complaints are reduced, and you gain peace of mind.

Finally, shared parking becomes a commercial asset: instead of announcing a limited and rigid quota, you can promise your prospects a flexible, fair & digitised system that guarantees better access to parking. In a market where services make all the difference, this is a powerful lever for attracting and retaining your tenants.

In conclusion

Shared car park is not a magic wand, but an intelligent way of making the most of a limited resource. Where the traditional model freezes usage and creates frustrations, sharing makes things more fluid, balances things out and provides real added value, both for companies and for landlords.

What makes the difference is not just the idea of sharing spaces, but the way it is organised: with clear rules, a digital solution like Sharvy and a transparent approach. This is where car parking goes from being a thorny issue to a strategic lever for improving the day-to-day lives of businesses and enhancing the attractiveness of the building.

Do you have a question? Check out the following FAQ!

Does shared car park mean that my employees will never have a guaranteed parking space?

Not necessarily. It all depends on the organisation in place. Certain seats can be permanently reserved for priority profiles (PRMs, pregnant women, visitors, etc.). Similarly, if the company wants a director or certain managers to keep their assigned seats, that’s perfectly possible.

The difference with a traditional system is that these assigned seats do not remain empty when the holder is absent. For example, if a manager is travelling or teleworking, he or she can indicate that his or her seat is available that day. It will then be made available to other employees, but will remain reserved for them under normal circumstances.

In this way, shared parking does not mean « losing » your parking space, but rather making it more intelligent and flexible: everyone retains their rights, while allowing collective use to be optimised.

What costs does this involve for a landlord?

Shared parking does not necessarily require heavy investment. Most of the time, it involves subscribing to a digital solution. In other words, there’s no need to build or extend the car park. What’s more, these costs can be passed on to tenant companies as part of their annual charges.

For comparison: building an additional underground parking space can cost between €15,000 and €25,000, depending on the configuration of the building. In contrast, a digital solution costs just a few euros per month per space. The cost/benefit ratio is therefore indisputable.

What’s more, some tools can be easily integrated into existing systems: access control, badges, electrical bollards, and so on. So you can add value to your facilities at no extra cost. And above all, fewer parking conflicts, fewer complaints… so less time spent managing these problems as a landlord.

What about security and access to the shared car park?

Digitalisation means better access control (badges, cameras with number plate recognition, mobile application). You know exactly who is using which space at what time, which reduces intrusions and improves site security.

For the landlord, it’s also a traceability tool: in the event of a dispute or security problem, it’s easy to identify which vehicle was in which space. This increases the confidence of tenant companies, who know that their car park is being managed securely and transparently.

As an added bonus, digitisation means you can set up specific access for one-off visitors and service providers, without having to give them a physical badge. Everything is done simply, remotely, via the application.