Press Releases

APCOA PARKING (APCOA), Europe’s leading parking operator with 1.8 million parking spaces at over 12,000 locations in 13 countries, has announced plans to deploy up to 100,000 new EV charging stations in its parking facilities by 2035. As part of its new EV strategy, APCOA will make the investment to expand its AC charging infrastructure and become a leading EV charging operator. In parallel, strategic partners from the automotive industry as well as energy and charging infrastructure providers will deploy additional 1,000 fast-charging stations across APCOA’s dense location network.

A new digital platform developed by APCOA will support the charging infrastructure which will be ready for non-proprietary hardware and can be operated independent of charge point ownership. This open and compatible setup allows the integration of multiple partners and services and represents a unique proposition in the market. The APCOA FLOW and APCOA Connect apps will serve as the frontend to the parking customer: They will be able to conveniently manage the entire EV charging process as well as additional value-added service including locating, booking and payment.

“The transition to electric mobility as the dominant technical solution in road traffic is an irreversible trend. EV charging infrastructure thus represents a major component of the transformation of APCOA’s car parks into ‘Urban Hubs’. For customers, the extended service infrastructure will increase the attractiveness of our locations. For us as an operator, we see substantial revenue potential from upgrading our parking sites with EV charging and other Urban Services”, explains Philippe Op de Beeck, CEO of APCOA PARKING Group. In keeping with its commitment to carbon neutral solutions, APCOA’s charging infrastructure will run primarily on green energy.

In this context, the decision by the European Parliament to ban sales of new cars with combustion engines from 2035 is a highly significant development. A recent study from the market analysts at Dynata confirms that consumers are increasingly willing to choose an electric vehicle, even in countries that have so far been somewhat reluctant to make the transition: 64 per cent of Germans expressed an interest in buying an electric or hybrid vehicle.

Furthermore, numerous countries have already enacted regulations to equip up to 30 per cent of public parking areas with EV charging stations, which will need to be implemented over the next few years. APCOA will work in partnership with its clients, the owners of the parking facilities, to deliver the roll out of these charging facilities, upgrading the energy grid where necessary, to offer EV users an optimal charging experience in accordance with their needs and expected parking time.

To date, around 2,500 EV charging stations are available in car parks operated by APCOA. Based on data collected from these charging stations, APCOA expects the demand for charging stations to further increase significantly in the near future as the number of EVs continues to grow. The business generated by this new charging infrastructure aligns well with APCOA’s core parking business. It offers users attractive value-added functionality and complements the wide range of additional services in the fields of urban logistics, mobility, and technology services. The offering is being provided on a site-specific basis under the APCOA URBAN HUBS brand.

“We firmly believe in the future of electric mobility, which stands to make an important contribution on the net zero journey. Therefore, we are creating the necessary infrastructure to play our part in meeting the international decarbonisation targets. As a company, we strive to shape our growth sustainably to create a liveable and green future. In recent years, we have continuously worked to implement a wide range of ESG measures and have combined our sustainability activities in a group-wide ESG program. In doing so, all measures are aligned with the UN Global Compact agreement to which APCOA is a signatory”, says Philippe Op de Beeck.

APCOA Parking Germany has won first prize at the EPA Awards 2022. The company is part of the APCOA Parking Group and impressed the jury of the European Parking Association (EPA) with its LiveSommer 2020 series of events. The concert series was launched during the first lockdown and attracted top-tier music stars including Robin Schulz, Michael Patrick Kelly and Felix Jaehn to perform in APCOA car parks at Stuttgart Airport ­– and invited audiences to join the party from their own cars.

The events were organised as car concerts to comply with the coronavirus restrictions of summer 2020. Each event accommodated up to 650 cars. APCOA’s LiveSommer 2020 concerts fostered a sense of joy, fun and community during the darkest days of the pandemic, as well as offering much-needed support to the hard-hit live music industry.

APCOA worked with numerous partners to organise the car concert series. These included the lead agency follow red GmbH, Michael Russ GmbH, Music Circus Konzert Büro GmbH, Stuttgart LIVE, Hitradio Antenne 1, Stuttgart Airport and easy ticket service GmbH.

APCOA played an integral role in the conceptualisation and organisation of the events and ensured seamless communication between the events’ partners and sponsors. APCOA FLOW, the smart parking app with contactless and secure payment, supported LiveSommer 2020 as an official partner.

APCOA won the EPA Award in the category “Marketing & Communication on Parking” in recognition of the company’s successful marketing and communication of the concert series. LiveSommer 2020 was accompanied by a comprehensive series of promotional measures, including cross-media campaigns, press and public relations work, out-of-home banners, newsletters and giveaways. The concert series succeeded in attracting sustainable attention for APCOA and, in particular, the APCOA FLOW brand.

APCOA received its award during the 20th EPA Congress in Brussels on September 13. Having been cancelled in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the joy was all the greater as APCOA attended Europe’s leading parking industry event this year: “We are proud to receive this award from the European Parking Association”, says Sebastian Merkle, Head of Corporate Communications & Brand Strategy at APCOA. “LiveSommer 2020 was not only a lot of fun, it also showcased what is important to us at APCOA: togetherness, digitalisation, and public health during the coronavirus pandemic”.

Its payment system, APCOA Connect, has been fully integrated with 450 EV fast-charging points to enable users to make either one single payment to cover both their EV and parking charge combined, or individual payments for Parking or EV Charging. All utilisation data for both parking and EV charging is provided to Network Rail via the APCOA Analytics dashboard suite.

The solution is already live at Leeds, Manchester Piccadilly and Reading stations, and is being extended to Edinburgh Waverley, Welwyn Garden City and Birmingham New Street station car parks during July. The system has also been installed in disabled parking bays, so the service is also available to Blue Badge holders. All EV charging points are also visible on Zap Map.

Kim Challis, APCOA's Regional Managing Director for UK & Ireland said: “We’re really pleased to have developed this solution in conjunction with Compleo to enable charging authentication and easy payment for Network Rail’s EV customers. This solution also provides a significant step towards our sustainability strategy.”

Compleo's UK Managing Director, Valentin Scheltow added: “We are delighted to partner with APCOA - Europe’s leading parking and mobility provider. I know the combined power of our two organisations working together will provide other innovative solutions.”

Jo Lewington, Network Rail's Chief Environment & Sustainability Officer, said: “As part of our wider Environmental Sustainability Strategy, we’re working towards delivering a low-emission railway and aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2045 in Scotland and by 2050 in the rest of Britain.

“Supporting the move to electric vehicles is a key part of that. We hope that by providing affordable, efficient and reliable charging points we can encourage more electric vehicles onto the road and help promote healthier air in and around our stations.”

A core strand of APCOA's ESG strategy is to rapidly increase the provision of EV charging capability across its car park estate and this new solution for Network Rail is a valuable contribution.

APCOA Parking Deutschland has launched a new partnership with the Danish car sharing provider GreenMobility in Cologne. Ten parking spaces are now available to customers in both the Klapperhof (Im Klapperhof 13, 50670 Cologne) and Rheinauhafen (Harry-Blum-Platz 2, 50678 Cologne) underground parking facilities, where customers can pick up and drop off GreenMobility’s Renault ZOE e-cars free of charge.

The two car parks are situated in the north and south of Cologne’s old town, a heavily frequented area with limited parking. APCOA and GreenMobility are already developing plans to expand their partnership over the next few months and years, including the provision of charging points for GreenMobility’s fleet of electric vehicles. Other joint locations in German cities are also already under consideration.

“Our new partnership makes car sharing even more attractive by providing additional parking spaces”, says Frank Van der Sant, Chief Commercial Officer of the APCOA PARKING Group. “As a result, there will be fewer parked cars in public spaces. It also allows us to contribute to the mobility revolution and play our part in protecting the environment and mitigating climate change”.

Urban Hubs create an ecosystem for services
The partnership has been launched as part of APCOA’s Urban Hub strategy. With its network of Urban Hubs, Europe’s leading parking manager is creating space in its car parks for services provided by a select group of partner companies. These include, for example, car rental and car-sharing stations. APCOA will create dedicated areas within its parking facilities for these mobility services and is also planning to integrate these services into its APCOA FLOW app.

GreenMobility launches in the Rhine region with a fleet of 100 electric cars
GreenMobility already offers its customers in Cologne and Düsseldorf access to 100 fully electric cars and will triple the size of its fleet by the summer. Vehicles are not tied to stations, but can be parked freely within a designated area. Customers are invoiced on a per-minute basis, currently at a reduced price of only 9 rather than 30 cents per minute. A total of 160,000 customers are already using the GreenMobility service in eleven European cities.

“With our all-electric fleet, we offer comfortable, convenient and climate-friendly mobility at affordable prices”, says Thomas Heltborg Juul, Managing Director of GreenMobility. “We are currently in the process of establishing our services across Germany and are thrilled to have entered into this new strategic partnership with APCOA, which secures additional parking spaces at two central locations in Cologne. We are delighted to be able to help make it easier for our customers to find a parking space”.