Falco’s cycle parking team were delighted to have exhibited at the Manchester Cycle City conference last month at the University of Manchester where we launched two new products for our cycle parking range:

The Falco range of Bicycle Detection and Monitoring Systems are the result of a collaboration with Dutch company Abel Sensors. Abel have a 10 year contract with the Dutch rail network to monitor all their cycle parks and so far have 140,000 bike spaces at over 20 stations within their management system! That roll out continues and provides a number of benefits to both cyclist and the management team:

• Assist ProRail to determine appropriate infrastructure requirements.
• Enable cycle park managers to monitor the usage of their facilities (both occupancy and abandoned/long parked bikes).
• Provide cyclists with information on the availability of free spaces.
• Provide cyclists with directional signage to local facilities.

Each cycle parking facility is different and there is a myriad of cycle parking rack designs and Falco / Abel have a number of different bike detection technologies to address each individual situation, including:

• Optical Sensors
• Contact sensors
• Line of Sight Detectors
• RFID Detectors

Essentially bike detection and monitoring systems measure the usage of bikes within a cycle park and make this information available for either;

a) Analytical purposes e.g. usage % figures over a specific time frame, reducing the numbers of abandoned cycles, planning the capacity of cycle facilities

b) Informational purposes e.g. to provide such things as signage to direct users in a certain way or modify behaviour, directional signposting for cyclists, managing the flow of bikes from different entrances, enabling charging systems to be introduced, integration of bike parking information into client apps.

Falco were also proud to launch their new FalcoCrea on-street bike store. The FalcoCrea is an innovative new cycle store which can be customised with a wide range of branding, patterns, maps, themes and photos. The FalcoCrea was developed from a growing demand for secure cycle storage for private homes, businesses and community neighbourhoods.

Based on the flagship FalcoLok design, the FalcoCrea retains the same design characteristics but in a much sleeker and compact design.

There is a huge number of modifications which can be made to both FalcoCrea stores including a wide range of different cladding options, dimensions, green sedum roofs, locking systems, creative graphics and patterns and shelter access.

For more information about any of the bicycle detection and monitoring systems or the FalcoCrea cycle store, please contact our technical sales team on 01538 380080.