How Parkeon and Cale Became the World’s Leader in Urban Mobility
Posted: Aug, 06, 2020 11:14AM ET • 3 min read
An Interview with:
Benoit Reliquet, President, U.S.
Emmanuel Lereno, PhD, Senior VP of Strategic Growth
Andreas Jansson, Senior VP of Sales, U.S.
Lionel Deperrois, Chief Operations Officer, U.S.
What were the main reasons Parkeon and Cale decided to join forces?
Benoit - Parkeon and Cale are the only 2 global leaders in Parking Technology worldwide. Joining forces as Flowbird allows us to enhance our innovation capability and share best practices in the 75+ countries where we are present.
Emmanuel - Combined customer footprint worldwide makes us very strong. We’re aligned to disrupt the market with innovative open systems that combine: MPP, Guidance, On Street, Off Street, Transit and Big Data Analytics for a better user experience and seamless mobility.
Lionel - Consolidation of the market in order to create a leader in this segment. Also to join forces on the R&D side, while bringing new technology to the market at an accessible price.
Can you explain how the name, ‘Flowbird’ reflects the new merged company mission?
Andreas - We are the company that provides cities and operators the solutions that will create flow and stop interruptions. Our logo and name symbolizes a flock of birds flowing together in harmony, illustrating what Flowbird provides for our customers and partners in the urban environment.
Emmanuel - Flow evoques the motion, the movement and how we’re trying to address the challenges related to moving transportation objects within the City ecosystem. Urban Intelligence directly comes from the Business Intelligence area that aims at extracting relevant behaviors, data correlations and a better understanding of the urban landscape transportation assets.
How is Flowbird different from Parkeon or Cale?
Andreas - Flowbird keeps the best of both Cale and Parkeon which were both known for their long tradition as hardware providers. Flowbird is focused on the bigger solution that goes beyond hardware and into the Cloud. We want to be recognized for providing true end-to-end solutions for the full urban environment, not only within parking.
Emmanuel - Parkeon and Cale were mostly perceived as very good hardware tech providers. Flowbird’s target is to demonstrate that we are a Services and Digitalization brand, addressing urban mobility issues. The hardware is a consequence of a digital strategy, not what drives our market positioning today.
Lionel - Flowbird is not different from Parkeon and Cale. Flowbird is Parkeon and Cale … but together, we are better and stronger.
What is in store for Cale and Parkeon products under Flowbird?
Benoit - More innovation than ever. Open, solar-powered Android platform to allow cities and municipalities to maximize the benefits of their assets. Combined mobile solutions mixing on-street payment, off-street booking, and guidance. Unique scalable analytics platform to improve solutions and systems efficiency through big data analytics.
Emmanuel - We’ve developed Occupancy Modeling by working with strategic partners in the market, allowing cities to mathematically model their ‘curb’ behavior to plan more effectively.
How have the 2 company cultures (Parkeon and Cale) mixed since the merge in January of 2018?
Benoit - From the initial conversation to the merger itself, it was obvious that the 2 company cultures were very close. Both companies were leveraging best-in-class products and customer services. This allowed us to merge very fast thanks to the open-minded approach of our team and their constant customer focus.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Parkeon and Cale have merged to become FLOWBIRD: Urban Intelligence. Flowbird operates in over 5,000 cities and 70 countries, using a cloud-based solution to help clients ease traffic congestion and efficiently manage their transit systems. Our significant expertise and strong investment into research and development allow us to deliver products and digital services that will help us improve individual journey experiences and make our communities better.
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