Behind the scenes of the MOL Campus project

How did the development of the MOL headquarters'' ultramodern smart car park unfold together with the Parkl team?

"The office of the future", "The greenest office building", "The country''s smartest building" – just a few phrases that raise the profile of an already colossal high-rise: not only Budapest''s but Hungary''s tallest building and the most significant office development of recent years, the MOL Campus.

The 28-storey building''s 86,000 m² footprint is equivalent to 12 football pitches, but its sheer size is not its only remarkable feature. The MOL Campus was built in the spirit of sustainability, and thanks to its innovative solutions it has earned the globally distinguished LEED Platinum and BREEAM Excellent certifications.

The headquarters is home to more than 2,500 MOL employees, so from the design phase onwards great attention was paid to services that support colleagues'' comfort and productivity. The company fine-tuned the smart service portfolio offered by the building based on international trends and employee feedback.

"For the digital programme team a project of this scale offers two paths: they can either develop every function in-house, or they can approach the leading companies in each field and bring them in as experts to co-develop and co-implement. We chose the hybrid of the two." – said Dóra Alexa, digital programme manager of the MOL Campus.

For parking management MOL decided to base its solution on a proven product on the market, and we were delighted that the choice fell on the Parkl team. So what did the collaboration look like? Come with us behind the scenes!

Parking as a mission-critical system of an office building

When designing an office building, meeting the expected performance of the office spaces themselves is not the only key to success. Mission-critical functions go far beyond making sure lifts, revolving doors and heating work – and we might not immediately realise how important trouble-free operation is for the car park too.

"The service developed by Parkl had to cover the full operation of a nearly 1,000-space, four-storey car park with 10 barriers, which is primarily used within two narrow peak windows in the morning and afternoon. Because of this it was essential for the MOL Campus to select a system that already works smoothly, proven across several similar sites." – said Péter Varga, managing director of the MOL Campus.

Just imagine the disruption to Budapest traffic if a car park of this size were to fail on a Wednesday morning. While 1,000 MOL employees waited to drive in, the queue of cars would form a roughly 4 km jam reaching from Kopaszi Dam to Népliget – enough to paralyse morning rush hour.

"Since the opening of the headquarters on 9 December 2022 – roughly half a year – we have not encountered any serious failure that would have disrupted the parking system, even though at times the barriers need to identify and admit 15 cars within a single minute. This proves that the close collaboration with the Parkl expert team during design and development produced an unshakeable, stable system." – added Péter Varga.

High technological expectations could not be an obstacle

When the Parkl expert team first sat down with the MOL Campus digital specialists, the first and most important question was which technology to use. Fortunately, common ground was found immediately: both platforms run on Microsoft''s cloud service, Microsoft Azure, which made the integration easier. It also simplified the implementation of additional requirements and features identified during design, such as releasing fixed parking spaces or controlling reversible barriers.

An essential part of the design was to assess the needs and commuting habits of employees, which had been significantly reshaped by the post-covid period and the emergence of hybrid work. In an organisation of this size, managing departments, teams and employees with different needs and permissions is also a major challenge for facility management, so integrating efficiency-boosting functions to support their work was a top priority.

The design phase resulted in the concept for a complex parking management system that is unique in Hungary both technologically and in terms of features.

A service with no compromises

The Parkl team was brought in as expert from the design phase, which made it possible to introduce a bespoke digital parking system fully tailored to employee needs and to local and operational specifics.

"By involving Parkl''s experts we were able to implement a solution that works for every user case, with no compromises. Our main goal was to deliver the highest possible user experience for employees, easing their daily life at the office, and to make available for facility management an efficient, transparent operating system." – added Dóra Alexa.

Parkl''s base product Parkl Office already contained many features; by customising them we integrated the Parkl components into the MOL Campus app, while operations colleagues now use an extended version of the Parkl online administration interface.

The functions below make the MOL Campus digital car park the most modern office parking facility in the country:

• Parking space booking – In-app parking space booking with different permission levels.
• Guest parking management – Sending invitations and assigning visitor spots.
• Releasing fixed parking spaces – An unused dedicated space can be released for a defined period so other colleagues can book it, e.g. during holidays.
• Reversible barriers – In peak periods (start and end of the working day, lunchtime) barrier direction can be switched based on whether more entries or exits are expected.
• Occupancy and mis-parking monitoring – Sensors monitor car park occupancy and send alerts for incorrect parking.
• Zone management – Certain zones can be assigned to users or teams, who can then only book spaces within those zones.
• Fleet car handling – Entry, exit and parking of company vehicles used for different purposes.

"This development was the largest and most significant project in our company''s history. We credit our success to the fact that despite our team''s young age we bring substantial experience and expertise, which allowed us to react quickly and flexibly to emerging needs. We are proud to say that we solved parking for one of Hungary''s largest office investments too!" – said Zsolt Somogyi, managing director of Parkl.

Enriched by this experience, we continue to move forward in the digital office parking management and e-mobility market, and keep looking for opportunities to expand our service with custom developments and features.