www.apcoa.eu

APCOA – The World of Parking

APCOA is Europe's longest established full-service parking organisation, and is the largest parking operator in mainland Europe. By "full-service" we mean the complete range of parking and parking-related activities, from managing car parks at airports and shopping centres, to the work we do in towns and cities including on-street parking enforcement for local government. There is no other company with anything like our experience of the full range of parking services.

The 4,500-space multi-storey car park at the new Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre straddles the A8 motorway right next to Stuttgart airport. The car park is 440 metres long, 100 metres wide, up to 22 metres high and the total parking area occupies as much space as 15 football pitches. The Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre will open in the Spring of 2007

 

Across Europe, we manage around 3000 different parking sites, which contain nearly three quarters of a million car parking spaces, and we employ some 3000 people in total. The countries in which we operate are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Currently, annual turnover for the APCOA Group is €460 million.

APCOA's origins go back 60 years or so, when a business with the same name was founded in the USA, specifically to set up and manage car parks at various airports (Airport Parking Corporation Of America).

The name APCOA first appeared in Europe in 1970, as an associate parking company in Germany and in Austria. Not long after that, APCOA Parking (UK) Ltd was set up to manage and operate a number of car parks in the UK.

It was during the 1970s that all of the APCOA businesses in Europe became fully independent, in other words they were no longer linked with the USA.

During the 1980s and 1990s, APCOA AG in Germany began acquiring parking companies across Europe, and in 2004 APCOA was acquired by the global investment firm Investcorp.

Today, overall strategy for the group is steered from APCOA AG's headquarters in Germany, with each individual country's operations being managed autonomously.

The car park at Munich’s Allianz Arena Munich is Europe's largest multi-storey car park, with a total of 11.500 spaces together with an adjacent external coach park. The Allianz Arena is used for major football matches and other large events.

Looking at the APCOA World of Parking in more detail, perhaps the best place to start is the company's extensive pan-European airport parking operations. Currently, APCOA is responsible for managing car parking at 21 European airports - in Germany, Austria, the UK, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Poland. APCOA is experienced with regard to all types of airport parking operations, from short-stay to long-stay, surface car park or multi-storey.

Typically, short-stay car parks handle a high turnover of traffic, where the priority is to enable people to arrive, deliver or collect passengers, and depart the airport with a minimum of fuss and with maximum efficiency. Long-stay car parks have equally important priorities in terms of overall efficiency and a lack of fuss, however there are other very critical considerations including the need to make the maximum use of airport space (in other words the footprint that individual parked cars occupy), the requirement to shuttle passengers to and from airline terminals comfortably and quickly, and the responsibility of looking after their cars safely and securely. The airport parking market is highly competitive, and APCOA' constant quest for improvements within all of its airport operations across Europe have resulted in a number of firsts in terms of technical innovation and resulting improvements in efficiency and business performance. For example, in the UK the company was the first to link license plate recognition systems to online booking of airport parking (at Gatwick LGW), which has speeded up the entire process to the benefit of all concerned, in particular the actual customers. APCOA has also pioneered and developed footprint-efficient airport "block parking" valet car parks, which allow 30% more cars to be parked in a given area, thereby increasing revenues by a proportionate amount.

Turning now to off-street car parks, one critical and very successful initiative by APCOA across Europe in recent years has been the development of new car parks in partnership with landowners and other commercially involved organisations, including shopping centre management companies and local government. APCOA has project-managed many such new car parks in a number of countries. It has carried out all of the required research, and has liaised with interested and affected parties in order to help steer planning applications to satisfactory conclusions. It has then arranged and sourced finance for the build phases, selected architects and specialist designers, and coordinated the actual construction. Of course the process doesn't end when construction is completed, because new car parks have to be marketed to their user groups, and their day-to-day operation has to be managed efficiently and carefully.

Some new car park developments are project-managed by APCOA in exchange for a straightforward management fee, while others involve a long-term relationship with revenue and profit sharing at the heart of the arrangement. This in particular is of great relevance where the land owner does not have the financial resources to develop a car park in order to satisfy demand; in such instances APCOA is able to provide and facilitate a totally holistic solution to everybody's social and commercial benefit.

The number of older car parks in need of refurbishment throughout Europe is growing exponentially, especially in town and city centres. Given that the boom years for car park construction were from the 1950s to the 1980s, there are many car parks between 20 and 50 years of age which must either be replaced or brought up-to-date. APCOA has a great deal of experience in the refurbishment of such older car parks, either as straightforward finite projects, or with a commercial involvement in the longer term with shared risk and shared revenues. There are many town and city centres which have been identified in recent years as so-called "regeneration areas", where APCOA' refurbishment of car parking facilities has assisted the regeneration process from residential, retail, and local business perspectives, immeasurably.

In addition to straightforward parking revenues, a growing number of car parks are being exploited commercially for their marketing and media potential. APCOA is in the vanguard of this specialist area within the car parking industry, and has experts able to advise companies which wish to use car parks for advertising and promoting their products and services. The fact is that the walls of car parks and even the vertical surfaces on their moving barriers, may be viewed objectively as advertising and promotional media, in the same way as any poster site or even the pages of a newspaper or magazine. Furthermore, the demographic profiles of car park users can be monitored accurately in order to match marketing and promotional requirements with the most appropriate car parks. This is why a growing number of car parks contain advertising material on their walls and equipment. The latest development in this field is the incorporation of small video displays on car park pay and display machines; customers using the machines have to look at the information screens anyway for a minimum period of time in order to complete a transaction, which means that a small promotional video may be shown adjacent to that screen and timed accordingly.

The future for the car parking industry as a whole is very exciting. At APCOA we are determined that we will remain in the forefront of commercial and technological development, in order to continue providing our customers, clients and partners with the best service, and the best commercial returns.

For more information on our business and everything we do, please go to www.apcoa.eu or telephone +49 711 947 91 0.

APCOA Parking AG
P.O. Box 23 04 63
70624 Stuttgart
Germany

Tel.: +49 711 947 91-0
Fax: +49 711 947 91-59
Web: www.apcoa.eu

 

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