Seamless allocation of mobile access with Parakey & APCOA

‍APCOA Parking Sweden has installed Parakey on virtually all its locked facilities: 40+ garages. We went to two of them with APCOA's Jerker Österdahl and talked about the benefits for property owners to use our solutions together.

Jerker Österdahl works with business development of Urban Hubs, APCOA's investment in physical and digital infrastructure for logistics, mobility, electric charging and on-demand services, where he sees Parakey as an important partner.

"I see a lot of potential for us. For example, a locked garage where there are charging points that no one uses at night: pay, unlock with the smartphone and charge the car."

APCOA has made an integration to Parakey which means that access to garages, in the form of a mobile key, is conveyed digitally and fully automated directly when renting a parking space. We go with Jerker to APCOA's garage at Otterhällan in Gothenburg, where the integration is used. In the car, he tells us what he sees as the greatest value with automated allocation of mobile access to APCOA's garage:

"A smooth customer journey! We can deliver faster to our customers. We used to have a plethora of different solutions, from physical keys to remote controls and fobs. Now we have full control, our customers have full control. Access is handled seamlessly, instantly, and terminated immediately when you are not supposed to enter."

There are those who are concerned that not everyone has a mobile phone to unlock and we ask Jerker if this is something they have experienced:

"Not in new sites. Maybe in old sites where we have switched to Parakey, but then we have kept the old solution for a transition period."

Jerker is very positive that APCOA receives very little support or questions about Parakey from its customers and users.

"I work in an industry where we get a lot of support when things don't work, and it's a good sign that we get some support. It is a stable product, unlike other solutions, we have very few problems with Parakey. The problems that have occurred have rather been due to other things like garage doors or possibly broken doors, and not Parakey's hardware."

When we move on to Kungsgaraget, Jerker tells us that it is Gothenburg's oldest garage, which opened in the 1950s. APCOA Parakey has rented parking spaces there.

"This is a real mountain room," says Jerker on his way down to the garage. "It's a great example of how Parakey works everywhere and doesn't require a connection to unlock." 

We park and Jerker tells us that they save a lot of time on administration by using mobile access to their locked garages, something he also emphasizes as one of the benefits for property owners by using Parakey's and APCOA's solutions together:

"It's a fully integrated, seamless solution, allowing us to deliver site rentals 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As a property owner, you save so much time on administration."

Jerker concludes by highlighting Parakey as supplier:

"Parakey is a good supplier, works very well with different installation companies around the country and is above all nice and easy to work with."

We humbly thank you for this and look forward to working with APCOA to continue enriching garages and urban hubs - where there may be charging infrastructure, spaces for bicycles or other smart logistics solutions - with mobile access.