Tenaga Car Parks was established in 2003 as a joint venture of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) and a Malaysian firm. The company was predominately launched, having identified a niche market, due to the lack of professionally run parking and traffic management solutions. Safety in parking was also seen as an urgent need at the time. Having later acquired the Malaysian firm, Tenaga is now a 100 percent Sri Lankan owned parking and traffic management company providing diverse services in managing facilities, consultancy and technical services, as well as offering a wide portfolio of products.
“Being the only professionally run car park company in Sri Lanka, we operate on three models: we either lease the land, we enter into a management contract or go on profit share,” explains Duminda Jayatilake, Chairman, Tenaga Group.
Having begun its operations with just three car parks, currently 15 car parks are operated under the company’s umbrella with around 150,000 vehicles utlising the car parks each month. The company provides parking solutions to the public and private sector, office and residential complexes and hospitals. A shuttle service managed by Tenaga, is also operated from the car parks. Parking related items, such as traffic safety products, signages, speed bumps, parking blocks, wall guards, barriers and software can be obtained through customer agencies provided by Tenaga.
To guarantee quality and ensure safety in its operations, regular training is conducted for the staff and stringent quality control measures and guidelines have been adopted. Surveillance systems have been introduced to provide safety and security in parking.
One of the major challenges that had to be overcome at the very onset was to make consumers or the public aware of the need for a company managing the car park of the institution or corporate. “Many tend to think that parking is a very nut and bolt type of industry and they believe that anybody can do it. By us coming in, we introduce our systems, we ensure that quality is maintained and we take the burden of running a car park out of the owner or client, giving them the opportunity to concentrate on their core business,” says Jayatilake.
The coming months will see Tenaga expand its operations both in Sri Lanka and India. Plans are now underway to introduce third generation mechanised parking to the country, an energy efficient multi-parking system, which will result in a three or four fold increase in the parking capacity at a given location. The new venture is a joint collaboration between Tenaga and Simplex, an Indian company, which manufactures high quality, mechanised parking systems. A solution provider in construction and infrastructure, Simplex has been at the forefront in the Indian construction industry and this joint venture will be an added advantage to Tenaga.
“We’re trying to give customers a service where there is the least amount of delay and lead time needed to go in and out of the parking system,” says Jayatilake. The parking system will consist of about eight floors and will be operated on ticket, or more advanced systems such as mobile phone operation. This will provide a solution to the rising need for parking slots, especially with the expected growth in tourist arrivals.
A range of value added services such as car washing, polishing and car detailing will also be introduced. With this, Tenaga will be transformed into a one-stop shop for customers providing comprehensive solutions for all parking needs.
Although the majority of the car parks managed by Tenaga are located in Colombo, measures have now being taken to introduce parking solutions to other areas as well. In expanding its operations abroad, several car parking projects in India have already been looked at. These include parking projects at airports and large-scale shopping malls.
Tenaga Car Parks was also recognised at the sixth annual Sri Lanka – Malaysia business awards 2010 under the ‘Professional and Consultancy Services’ category.
