At the end of 2020, the company Opatija 21 d.o.o. was honored with a valuable acknowledgment, an award given by the professional Croatian Parking Association (HPU) for the best company in terms of organization, improvement and development of parking systems.
On the occasion of the award ceremony, director Igor Štok said:
I am especially honored that the award comes from the profession and in the competition of the whole of Croatia, as many as 70 cities and member municipalities, and even more because the profession has not awarded anyone in the past 14 years. I am extremely proud of all the employees who work with me continuously to improve the company. I would also like to thank the owner, the City of Opatija, who enabled the company to develop. This is extremely important for running a business. You must know that we are a very young company that was thrown into the fire three years ago without any parameters for the organization of activities as well as financial resources.
HPU awards the prize based on the analysis according to several parameters. First of all, they found that the city of Opatija has the most complex General Parking Conditions, for reasons already known: free hour for 4185 citizens of Opatija per day, unique user comfort via virtual parking coupon and an extremely large number (680) of privileged parking permits, three months of non-payment on weekends and holidays in winter, etc. Furthermore, it is important how human resources are spent, and Opatija 21 has the lowest number of employees compared to the number of parking spaces, at the same time with the best parking control system. In order to be able to control all these user benefits, without endangering the company's business with excessive costs or employing a large number of people, it is necessary to approach the company's organization in a different way, says director Štok. That is why Opatija 21 implements specific, complementary solutions, constantly improving the implementation of new technologies.
Parking companies, members of the association, believe that we are well organized and efficient, and the fact that now other cities in Croatia are contacting us wanting to apply our approach also speaks in our favor. More than often we receive praise from all over Croatia, but also from foreign users, because they are a true indicator of our efforts to do more and better.
It should be said that the company, as the best in Croatia, was also nominated for the EPA AWARD (European Parking Association Award).