APCOA PARKING Enters Strategic Partnership with Indian Startup GET MY PARKING to Enhance Smart Parking Portfolio

APCOA PARKING, Europe’s leading parking operator, has entered into a strategic partnership with Get My Parking (GMP), India’s principal smart parking startup, to customize and deploy an open IoT platform that provides a seamless mobility experience across all parking touchpoints.

This digital platform will be scaled to all 13 countries in which APCOA operates more than 1.4 million car spaces at over 9000 locations. It is an interoperable platform, integrating varied parking equipment and connecting parking spaces to cars to create an overall mobility experience. This enables APCOA to provide the latest consumer solutions such as their recently launched mobile app APCOA FLOW (www.apcoa.de/flow), which includes ticketless automated access and cashless exit and will soon be enhanced by pre-booking options and on-street parking payment functions.

“This strategic partnership enables us to develop our digital platform and new products very quickly and cost-effectively. We are therefore in a position to offer our customers additional value: The GMP technology works with existing barrier technologies in older car parks, eliminating the need to purchase a new parking system. And the digital platform’s enhanced compatibility means that we can launch many new services and partnerships in the near future,” said Philippe Op de Beeck, CEO of APCOA PARKING Group.

“We are very excited about this collaboration, as it gives us a huge start in growing our international footprint. APCOA is the undisputed European market leader and we could not have asked for a better partner to enter the western parking market,” said Chirag Jain, CEO Get My Parking. Co-founder CMO Rasik Pansare added, “APCOA's scale and size is the dream opportunity for testing our technology expertise. It is an ambitious project and our team is ready for the responsibility to assist millions of European motorists.”

This partnership is a marriage of operations and technology expertise, with APCOA’s experience and scale complimenting GMP’s innovation and agility. With such synergies, both expect to grow markedly in their own domains. GMP envisages learning a great deal from the advanced parking market of Europe and implementing that in the early-stage parking industry of India, thereby accelerating the smart parking ecosystem of India. Based on the new technology, APCOA will offer more customer-focused services while at the same time contribute to the smart city ecosystem with innovative solutions to help meet the many challenges facing modern cities.

The proprietary open platform is modular and future-proof, meaning it can be used in various capacities as per requirements and new capabilities can be integrated without affecting existing services. Offers from providers of other services like car sharing services, car rental companies, e-charging stations or parcel delivery services can be easily integrated into the platform, making the parking experience even more convenient. The first platform driven cooperation was entered into with Sunhill Technologies GmbH, a subsidiary of Volkswagen Financial Services AG (VWFS): Together with APCOA, they now offer customers of all VW Group brands contactless entry and exit, as well as automated billing of parking processes in the background.

• Collaboration leads to digital customer solutions for connecting parking with consumer mobility
• Technology to integrate parking equipment with cloud-based IoT to bring all APCOA parking lots across 13 countries onto a standard, interoperable platform
• Open platform will enable new partnerships and business models across the smart city and connected mobility ecosystem
• Recently launched APCOA FLOW app in Germany is the first of the many outputs to be powered by this platform

About APCOA PARKING Group

APCOA PARKING Group is Europe’s leading parking management company with more than 45 years of industry expertise. APCOA Group’s 5,000 employees manage approximately 1.4 million individual parking spaces at over 9,000 locations in 13 European countries. These include parking spaces at 1,800 city and shopping centre locations, 400 hotels, 150 hospitals and 58 European airports. With its consistent “asset light” business model, APCOA is a trusted partner for private and public real estate owners.

APCOA’s advanced IT platform is the interface between its car parks, business customers, partners, car drivers and their vehicles. Thus, APCOA is able to offer its business and end customers innovative services and products to improve the efficiency and comfort of their mobility experience. In addition to the company’s customers, these innovative services also create environmental benefits: APCOA actively contributes to reducing CO2 emissions in cities and at traffic intersections by reducing the volume of traffic searching for parking spaces with the aid of digital services and the company’s intelligent traffic management system.

www.apcoa.com
apcoa.de/flow

About sunhill technologies GmbH 

sunhill technologies GmbH is engaged in the development and establishment of mobile phone cashless payment methods and mobility services in conjunction with leading German and European mobile-communication companies. Since 2001, the company has been developing secure and convenient solutions for mobile payment and since then, in excess of two million customers in more than 150 locations all over Europe have been using sunhill payment systems.

The company’s many years of experience in development and practical application makes sunhill technologies a reliable and competent partner for customers, cooperation partners and local authorities alike. sunhill technologies has taken on a pioneering role in the growth market of mobile payment in Europe, specializing in the mobile ticketing and parking by phone sectors. Volkswagen Financial Services AG is the new majority shareholder of sunhill technologies. Before, leading German entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have funded sunhill technologies including MIG, HTGF, KfW and Bayern Kapital.

About Get My Parking 

Urban vehicle owners can search and book cabs, movies, dinner dates or even laundry services on their phones. And yet, they are forced to waste their time, fuel, mental peace and tempers on parking woes. We, at gmP, are committed to organize the parking industry through our mobile solutions and empower motorists with a bird’s eye view of all parking relevant spaces.