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APCOA makes new technology available to Oslo residents

Never before have there been so many expensive bikes on the streets of Oslo. The electric bike boom has made theft a major societal problem[1]. The pandemic has placed great restrictions on public transport, and the bike has strengthened its position as a very attractive way of transport. Unfortunately, the lack of safe bike parking leads many to drop it[2].

In line with urban development plans for Oslo and changes in society in general, APCOA with its Urban Hub initiative will take an active role in working towards more sustainable solutions for parking areas.

• We welcome cyclists back to the city center with a Bikely box in the middle of Majorstuen Metro station. We are replacing 3 parking spaces in favor of 10 safe bike parking spaces, where cyclists can park without worrying about bike theft. This would have been difficult without our collaboration with Bikely, says Victoria Ringen in APCOA.

Secure bike parking in the middle of Majorstuen

From the country's largest cycling city Trondheim (2019) comes world-leading technology in safe and smart bike parking. With Bikely from Trøndelag, the cyclist gets access to their own specific locker through an app. It has never been easier and safer to park the bike. The app offers advanced booking and access without intermediaries or time limits. In the app you see all available lockers in real time.

With APCOA, the technology will also be available to the residents of Oslo. For 10 NOK per hour, the cyclist gets access to a bike locker with space for both a backpack, shopping bags and a helmet.

• Finally, the market's safest bike parking is also available in Oslo. APCOA has made this possible for us.  We have worked hard and long for this, says founder and general manager Hallvar Bergh in Bikely.

The location is suitable both for those who visit Majorstuen and Bogstadveien, but also those who are going elsewhere in the city. Now everyone can take their bike to Majorstuen Metro station, park the bike safely in one of the lockers, take public transport or use the car sharing offer that is also available in the car park. If the solution from Bikely becomes as popular as the electric bike for the residents of Oslo, bike lockers are predicted to have a bright future. APCOA has plans for bike lockers at several locations if the project is a success.

APCOA is investing in environmental friendly transport. The bike lockers are part of the company's Urban HUB's concept that makes new mobility solutions available to consumers.

Bikely has already delivered safe and smart bike parking to 14 Norwegian municipalities. The collaboration with APCOA has been the gateway to the residents of Oslo, and the goal is rapid rollout to several locations in Norway's largest cities.

- We are very pleased that APCOA is buying Security Park / Profectum. It is a solid company with a leading position within development of seamless customer journeys and has established parking concepts in all sectors. We have great confidence that we together will continue a good relationships with all our clients, says Vegard Lunde, CEO of Security Park.

“Furthermore, we are pleased that our skilled employees are entering a future-oriented company that both takes good care of the employees and is much into competence building and innovation," says Lunde.

- Digitization and streamlining mean that parking is changing. With the best of both worlds, we will be able to contribute to even better customer journeys, as well as increase efficiency significantly, with less time in the cars and correspondingly more time in the parking areas. We look forward to having  great employees on the APCOA team, and together see how we with a common solution can continue to deliver high quality and innovative parking technology to an even greater degree, says Rune Feltman, CEO of APCOA.

APCOA vinner europeisk innovasjonspris med egenutviklet løsning

APCOA vant i år førsteplass i kategorien «Innovative løsninger innen parkering» ved EPA Awards (European Parking Association) for denne parkeringsteknologien.

To av APCOAs egne eksperter i Norge har vært ansvarlige for utviklingen av parkeringsløsningen. Magnus Bae og Espen Kvalvik sitter på APCOAs kontorer i Nydalen og jobber videre med kreative parkeringsløsninger.

-        Parkeringsbransjen har sett lite utvikling, men de siste ti årene har dette endret seg gjennom videre utvikling av skiltgjenkjenningsteknologi. Flere konkurrenter har valgt å bruke dette som supplement til eksisterende bom anlegg. Vi valgte istedenfor å ta bort bommene og bygge et nytt parkeringssystem som kan gi kundene våre en sømløs parkeringsopplevelse. Og det syns jeg vi har fått til. Etter at man har registrert en bruker i appen vår, trenger man ikke å tenke på noe annet enn å parkere bilen, så gjør appen resten av jobben. Det er veldig gøy å ha funnet en ny løsning som vi ser at fungerer så bra og som bidrar til å drive parkeringsbransjen framover, sier Utviklingssjef Magnus Bae.

Kombinasjonen av utviklernes tekniske ekspertise og bransjekunnskap har vært avgjørende for kvaliteten og verdien av produktet.

Norsk marked tar godt imot nye teknologier

Dette er den største utrullingen av ANPR basert parkeringssystem i hele Europa, til over 130 av APCOAs norske parkeringsområder.

-        Gode brukeropplevelser handler om enkle grensesnitt med få klikk. Dette er en super praktisk løsning som man verken trenger å forholde seg til eller bruke fra dag til dag. Den fungerer automatisk i bakgrunnen i hverdagen. Det har vært moro å se hvor godt løsningen fungerer i praksis, både fra et teknologisk ståsted, men også basert på tilbakemeldinger fra våre brukere og villigheten fra våre samarbeidspartnere til å adoptere ny teknologi.

Løsningen vår har et spennende potensial fremover som jeg tror blir utrolig kult å jobbe med, spesielt med tanke på nye teknologier og tjenester som f.eks. "smarte" biler, stedstjenester, og bilkollektivtjenester. Jeg er ikke i tvil om at løsningene vi lager er riktig vei å gå for å kunne håndtere trafikkbildet de neste tiårene og miljøutfordringene som vi står ovenfor, opplyser seniorutvikler Espen Kvalvik.

Denne løsningen er del av en langsiktig investering for å tilpasse parkeringsområdene til selvkjørende kjøretøy, noe som forventes at kommer til å være en standard del av trafikkbildet i framtiden. Gjennom mer effektive og sømløse parkeringsordninger vil Norge erfare mindre utslipp i byer ved å redusere trafikkvolumet, da dette vil kutte ned på tiden brukt på å lete etter parkering.

Om APCOA

APCOA PARKING Norway AS er en del av Europas største parkeringsselskap. Vi forvalter 1200 parkeringsområder i hele landet. Produktene våre skreddersys til den enkelte kunde og vi har erfaring og kunnskap innenfor alle sektorer (lufthavn, sykehus, p-hus, hotell og konferanse, kjøpesenter, innfartsparkering, bykjerner, on-street og off-street).  Med vår forretningsmodell er vi den pålitelige partneren som maksimerer verdien for private og offentlige eiendomseiere.

Via vår digitale plattform APCOA FLOW kobler vi parkeringshus- og områder med kunder, partnere og deres kjøretøy. Basert på denne teknologien, forvandler vi våre parkeringsplasser til mobilitets hub, og tilbyr innovative tjenester som muliggjør en mer praktisk hverdag. Dette har også fordeler for miljøet: med våre digitale tjenester og vårt intelligente Traffic Management System, bidrar vi aktivt til reduksjon av utslipp i byer ved å redusere trafikkvolumet for de som søker etter parkering. Ved å koble sammen parkering og mobilitet, er APCOA posisjonert for å bli en integrert del av Smarte byer. We Connect Parking and Mobility.

www.apcoa.no

If you go into Google maps and search for “Oslo City Center”, chances are that the pin will land at Byporten. The Byporten Car Park is a frequently visited garage located in the middle of Oslo City Center. The site is in connection to offices, a popular shopping center, a hotel and all the other facilities you would normally find in the middle of a large city. At Byporten, we have now gone live with a complex ANPR installation (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) catering for both short term-, contract-, employee- and hotel parking.

Short term parking

The optimal way for the short term parking consumer is to pay on exit. Or to not pay at all, as many of them would probably prefer. Both is possible at Byporten.

As the cameras know when the consumer entered the car park, there is no need to visit the payment machine until the moment you are leaving. Unless you have registered in the app of course, then everything will happen automatically.

If the consumer forgets to pay, “forgets to pay” (in quotes for a reason), or simply overdrew the payment card while buying 5 pairs of designer shoes at Byporten shopping centre, he may do a late payment on web or wait until he receives an invoice.

Integrated Hotel Parking Solution

Upon arrival, the hotel guest will pay for his parking duration at the hotel desk. From this point the guest is digitally white-listed in our system. She may enter and exit as many times as she pleases during her stay.

Integrated Contract Parking Solution

Contract parking and employee parking allows our frequent visitors to white-list their cars in our system to experience seamless parking and automatic invoicing.

With our ANPR system, all segments are cared for at Byporten!

To be continued at www.parke.no

We have pressed the play-button on our CPMS (Car Park Management System) with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) at Tromsø Airport. After some intensive research, we believe that this is the northern most located ANPR car park in the world, approximately 590 kilometers north of the polar circle.

We are looking forward to connect with all the travelers parking at the airport. Read more about what the connected consumers at Tromsø will experience here. It is a small piece of the future of parking, but they can relax. We are here for them 24/7/365.

And may we also add (being from the south), that we are looking forward to polar bears driving their fancy SUV’s to the airport, every time they are flying over to Svalbard, visiting their friends and family.

Happy parking, Tromsø Airport!

Check out our ANPR-blog by clicking here. 

The agreement includes administration and purchase of parking control fees, complaint-management and appeals, ledger management, debt collection and purchase of the current debt portfolio. A number of employees will also be transferred from EuroPark to Arvato. 

“We are very pleased that EuroPark have chosen to enter a long-term strategic collaboration with us, to ensure continuity and growth for EuroPark. At the same time we take over skilled employees from EuroPark. They know the business-critical services and processes, making sure that we have all the prerequisites for a long-term and good cooperation. This agreement is of great importance to our growth strategy and our objectives, where we invest considerably in parking,” says Karl Otto Aam, Country Manager for Arvato Financial Solutions Norway. “This agreement turns Arvato into the largest Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) supplier of services for the parking industry in Norway.”

«The agreement with Arvato gives us greater opportunity to focus on our core business» says Paul Cremers, Managing Director of EuroPark Norway. «A partnership with Arvato, the leader within invoice processing and debt collection in Europe, makes it easier for us to follow up on breaches of parking regulations and enforcement of control fees in an efficient manner. We have chosen Arvato due to their extensive experience in the parking industry.»

EuroPark is the largest player in parking in Norway and owned by APCOA Parking Holdings GmbH. APCOA Parking is the leading operator of parking facilities in Europe, and offers a complete range of services for the owners of parking facilities. With its European headquarters in Stuttgart, APCOA currently manages around 1.3 million parking spaces in more than 7,500 cities in 12 countries. APCOA operates and monitors car parks, park & control, debt collection and security. It is active in airport parking, city parking, fairs and events, shopping malls, hotels, hospitals and on-street parking.

Arvato Financial Solutions is a global provider of financial services, and part of the German Bertelsmann Group. The company provides professional outsourcing services (Finance BPO) focusing on cash flow in all phases of the customer lifecycle - from risk management to billing, sales of receivables and debt collection. The company has about 7,000 employees in 22 countries. Arvato handles around 10 000 customers, making the Europe's third largest provider of integrated financial solutions.

APCOA PARKING Group, Europe’s leading parking services provider, has appointed Philippe Op de Beeck (54) as its new Chief Executive Officer. Furthermore, Steffen Bätjer (46) joins the company as CFO as of 1 March 2016. 

Mr. Op de Beeck joins APCOA on April 4 and brings 25 years of experience in a range of pan-European and global companies. He joins from international catering company Compass Group, where the last three years he was Group Managing Director for Asia Pacific after two years in a similar role in Europe. Prior to this he was EMEA President at Gategroup, an airline services company, and Senior Vice President at automation manufacturer Swisslog. He has also held senior roles at Renault Credit International, Axus International, Hertz Rent a Car and Unilever. He has considerable experience in leading service business organisations, and a strong track record in driving profitable growth in contracting businesses, enhancing the full potential of the service offering for customers.

Mr. Bätjer joins APCOA from Techem, having spent over six years as CFO at the energy management solutions provider. Before his time at Techem, he held senior finance positions at WestLB and Universal Music, and started his career at management consultants McKinsey&Co. His experience in contract businesses, complemented by a strong commercial, strategic and analytical skill set is perfectly suited to help APCOA deliver its strategic growth plan.

Nick Buckles, Chairman of APCOA, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Philippe Op de Beeck and Steffen Bätjer to APCOA. Philippe has the proven capabilities required to drive exceptional business performance by creating strategic clarity, driving commercialisation and customer focus, while ensuring disciplined execution. Steffen brings a strong track record of delivering operational excellence and business transformations in contract businesses. We believe that their combined experience from leading service and contract business organisations will ensure that APCOA continues to be the European industry leader and deliver on our strategic targets.”

Philippe Op de Beeck said: “I am delighted to join APCOA as CEO and contribute my experience to grow and strengthen the company further. The business is well-positioned to capture new opportunities and I am confident that we have the team and resources to gain a greater foothold in our core European markets. I look forward to working with the APCOA team as we take the company to the next stage of development.”

Mr. Buckles added: “We thank outgoing CEO Ralf Bender and CFO Nicolas Reinhart for their important roles and their contributions to maintaining the stable platform and strong performance that APCOA has seen during the last year. We are grateful that Ralf will remain involved as a Senior Advisor to APCOA and that the company will continue to benefit from his experience. Nicolas will remain with the company until the end of March, ensuring a smooth handover to the new management team.”

Ralf Bender said: “After the successful recapitalization of APCOA in 2014 and the completion of the operational turnaround last year, I hand over a solid platform ready for further growth to Philippe Op de Beeck. Having navigated the company for the past five and a half years, I am now ready to approach new entrepreneurial challenges. At the same time, I am pleased to continue to support APCOA as a Senior Advisor going forward.”

Since its restructuring in 2014, APCOA has seen solid performance in revenues, profitability and cash flow. In 2015, EBITDA grew by about 7% to approx. EUR 59 million while EBIT rose by 20% to more than EUR 35 million. At the end of 2015, the company had a very healthy cash balance of more than EUR 50 million.