September 2018

At the 6th “Allianz Autotag” at the end of September at the AZT, Allianz board members, AZT experts and representatives of the automotive and mobility industries discussed the topic of "Parking 4.0". The AZT presented a new test standard for actively braking parking and manoeuvring systems, which was developed together with international partners.

The topic of parking plays a major role in today's traffic: The search for a parking space causes one third of the traffic in European city centres. On average, we spend 41 hours a year searching for a parking space. In Germany, drivers spend an average of ten minutes looking for a parking space, covering a distance of several kilometers (Source: Siemens 2015, Statista 2017). In Munich, 12.5 percent of the traffic area or more than 5,300 square kilometers serve as parking space. This puts Munich at the top in Germany (Source: Ubeeqo 2017).

The topic of parking is also of great relevance to insurance companies. Almost every second reported claim in motor insurance is related to a parking and manoeuvring accident. For these losses alone, around 3.4 billion Euro are paid out annually to customers and injured third parties in Germany. Consequently, not only the automotive industry is interested in the further development of parking and manoeuvring assistants. A recent study by the German Association of Insurers (GDV) with the participation of the AZT shows that two thirds of all parking accidents could be avoided with the help of actively braking parking and manoeuvring systems. This involves possible savings of about 2.1 billion Euro per year for the insurance industry. Managing Director of the AZT Dr. Christoph Lauterwasser sums it up strikingly: "One of our biggest opponents is the bollard.”

Current technological developments in the automotive sector as well as in support of parking traffic and their possible effects on motor insurance were discussed with experts from the respective fields in a panel discussion. What it looks like, for example, when a car actively brakes with technical support in parking or manoeuvring situations, was demonstrated live to the audience on site. A BMW was first driven towards a bollard serving as a test object, then towards a "soft vehicle target" in order to demonstrate the automatic, independent braking of the vehicle. These scenarios also served to illustrate the new test standard for actively braking parking and manoeuvring systems, which the AZT developed together with international partners and which was presented to the public for the first time at the “Allianz Autotag”. 

Further details on the test standard, the recommendations of Allianz derived from it and the most important positions of Allianz on the subject of "Parking 4.0" are summarized in a press release.