We recently caught up with Joe Headland, Head of Operations at Spokesafe. Spokesafe provides a safe and convenient place to store bikes as part of a more connected urban transport network.
Q-Park is well known for developing sustainable Mobility Hubs across its network of city‑centre parking facilities. These hubs are brought to life through strong partnerships with on‑site providers, delivering a variety of services within one integrated space. We recently caught up with Joe Headland, Head of Operations at Spokesafe, to talk about this collaboration. Spokesafe operates secure, access‑controlled bike storage in numerous Q‑Park locations, supporting commuters, residents, and couriers by providing a safe and convenient place to store bikes as part of a more connected urban transport network.
Why did you choose Q-Park? Secure bike parking I think brings perhaps a host of different customers or individuals. Secure bike parking you don't need to own a car to access to a Mobility Hub. Once you're on-site you will see a range of different services which could appeal to you, whether that's secure bike parking itself, you own a bike, but also bike hire and additional facilities like parcel drop-offs and so on.
We chose Q-Park because we were after a partner to launch with who could offer a well-maintained and respectful facility. The Q-Park brand is obviously popular and well-respected. For us it was important, particularly of this being our first facility, to situate it in a safe and welcoming environment with staff on-site. Alongside that, the back-office operations of Q-Park, wider management system approach, all made it very easy to launch, plan and then to jointly activate a new cycle parking facility in the centre of London.
What do you like about working with Q-Park?
They’ve been a very steady and consistent partner for us; we've been able to work together to improve both the existing unit and then also design plans which improve our planned units. Q-Park operationally on a day-to-day basis is very easy to work with, we can communicate and get an answer back.
When you’re looking to locate into a mobility hub, what are you looking for?
A good Mobility Hub should have a central city location. It should have consistent security processes, and it should also have very clear wayfinding and signage. With Q-Park we find more so than a lot of other car parks across the UK, it really ticks these boxes.
How would you define a Mobility Hub?
A good Mobility Hub I think are typically very ill-defined. With Spokesafe, what we look for in a Mobility Hub is a central location that provides space for individuals to either connect to different modes of transport, or they know that on a Monday they can park their car, on a Tuesday their bike, perhaps on a Wednesday or Thursday they can pick up a hire vehicle.
How do you find working alongside different Mobility Hub partners?
I think it's wonderful to have an ecosystem where you have like-minded companies and businesses all providing a service which is different but not unrelated. We've certainly found that we've picked up customers and users who have used the facility initially for one purpose and then have just by walking past noticed our unit, and have then become long-term and very happy cyclists with Spokesafe.
What impact has Spokesafe had on the wider community?
So when we launched in 2019 with Q-Park across three locations in Central London we now have together, we generated over 140,000 cycle journeys. I like to think about the individual story, in this hub we have a range of delivery drivers, individuals who before were taking the tube to work, who now cycle every day. I think that's the thing that makes us most proud to do what we do, making journeys happen I think that otherwise wouldn't have taken place.
Is the Mobility Hub concept scalable to new cities for you?
Since launching with Q-Park we have opened facilities across the UK, in Northern Ireland, in Wales, recently opened in Manchester and Sheffield. It's not just the major cities where this works, it’s smaller individual towns as well.
It is variable, it's scalable, it works in unique contexts. We facilitated over 250,000 cycle journeys in 2024 alone, we're on track to do a million cycle journeys by the end of next year. We're looking forward to continuing this partnership with Q-Park and scaling up right across the UK.
Why are Mobility Hubs great for secure bike parking?
With secure bike parking, there’s a misconception that cyclists need all the bells and whistles, and that to cycle in you need showers, lockers, changing facilities. They do help, but they’re not necessarily essential. We found what cyclists are really looking for is secure, easily bookable, easily accessible facilities, here they can view availability in advance, access straight away 24/7. The Mobility Hub setup at Q-Park is very flexible, and we’re able to provide individual facilities on a site-by-site basis.
What does secure bike parking bring to a Mobility Hub?
What are the key benefits of Spokesafe’s partnership with Q-Park?
Q-Park have been an incredible partner for us. Right from day one where we launched together and we had to persuade Q-Park of this ridiculous, crazy concept that you could take just a few spaces and turn them into 45-50 bike parking spaces. Q-Park immediately saw the vision, helped us turn that vision into reality, and then have scaled that across multiple sites in central London. Q-Park have been incredibly consistent, patient when we needed them to be as well, but then also optimistic and I think are conscious of what the future of urban transport will be.
To find out more about Q-Park Mobility Hubs click here.
About Q-Park
Q-Park is a leading off-street parking infrastructure owner and operator with well-managed commercial parking facilities across seven western European countries. We operate off-street parking spaces we own, have under concession or with long-term lease contracts from public and private landlords. We focus on off-street purpose-built parking facilities at strategic locations. We operate more than 5,300 parking facilities comprising over 1 million parking spaces in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark. Based on publicly available industry data for our competitors, we estimate that we are a top three player, based on the estimated off-street revenues, in all the countries in which we operate. Q-Park also has numerous mobility hubs which provide access to a variety of mobility solutions. We house and support a range of activities from last mile logistics, electric vehicle charging, micromobility and car sharing services which help support urban accessibility, sustainability and liveability.
