In August, Poland has joined the group of 8 countries in which the free APCOA FLOW mobile application is available.

We currently have mobile applications in all of our largest markets: in the UK (since the end of 2017), Germany (since May 2018), Italy, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway (since November 2018), Sweden (since March 2019) and Austria (since July 2019), and as of August we are also available in Poland. Our applications now offer 389 thousand parking spaces in Europe; we have recorded over 300 thousand downloaded applications and 275 thousand new users. A new user is registered every 2 minutes. These are impressive numbers. We all work hard to make sure that APCOA FLOW is a great success, i.e. that all of our users are satisfied with a tailor-made product that meets their expectations and, most importantly, is efficient and user-friendly.
 
What is APCOA FLOW?

At its most basic level: APCOA FLOW is a mobile application that enables payment for parking in any car park type. APCOA FLOW brings the parking industry into the digital age. The users of each of the several hundred car parks in Poland that are managed by APCOA, after registering in the application, can use it to pay the parking fee but also to find the nearest car park and check the number of available parking spaces and amount of the parking fee. In the future, they will also be able to book parking spaces – or choose the option of guaranteed availability of a specific space. The application will also navigate car park users straight to the car park entrance. The user will also be able to use local discounts, e.g. at the shopping centre, as a loyal customer.

How does it actually work?

The entry control system recognises the car using LPR (licence plate recognition) or QR code and confirms in the cloud that the parking fee can be automatically debited from the user’s credit card. The barrier will lift automatically. Upon exit, the platform will calculate and collect the fee from the credit card and open the barrier. Everything will be done automatically, without having to pull out the smartphone.

The situation will be similar at car parks with parking meters, e.g., at shopping centres. After parking the car, the user runs the APCOA FLOW application on the phone in order to initiate the parking session and pay for the car park or find that, for instance, the first hour of parking is free, which is particularly important when parking at shopping centres.

The Polish parking industry is growing fast, which means that the potential for APCOA FLOW is very high.

People appreciate comfort and value their time. By integrating a network of several hundred conveniently-located APCOA car parks in virtually every major city in Poland with other solutions, such as the applications of shopping and entertainment centres, office buildings, sports facilities, airports, metered parking zones, public transport, railways, car sharing or urban bike, APCOA FLOW will become a platform that integrates multiple parking and mobility functions as part of the so-called smart city solutions. I am deeply convinced that APCOA FLOW will take the Polish parking market by storm and transfer it to the so-called cloud. We are already engaged in talks with potential partners who are interested in the opportunity to offer various types of smart mobility services together with us using our application.

The application is a tailor-made tool that is also suitable for the broadly defined retail industry. What are the benefits to the owners and managers of shopping centres?

APCOA FLOW opens up the possibility of operating a car park with one or more hours of parking for free, implementation of loyalty programmes, discounts on parking depending on the amount spent on shopping, dedicated parking spaces (e.g. wider spaces or spaces located directly opposite the entrance to the shopping centre from the car park) for selected customers and implementation of “shopping night” promotional campaigns combined with free parking for users of the application. APCOA FLOW can be integrated with other external applications, and it supports virtually any parking system. Other evident benefits include the savings on ticket costs and wear of car park equipment because control of access to the car park and fee collection will be done digitally.