After capturing the ‘intelligent transportation system’ (ITS) markets in Europe, Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram based ARS Software Engineering, the subsidiary of the Netherlands headquartered ARS Traffic and Transport Technology, is all set to make inroads into the Indian market.
While speaking to IANS, Jan Linssen, CEO of ARS said: “The entry into the Indian market was smooth because of their strength in their products that have become a sought after product in Europe.”
“We already have inked a major deal with the Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), and our product would be operational for them starting this summer as we have taken over the implementation and maintaining their vehicle management system (VMS),” said Linssen.
Consequent to this sitting in the Mumbai office of BPCL, officials can now, keep track of the stock of their more than 10,000 outlets spread across the country. They can manage their supply, besides tracking their 100 depots and 8000 lorries, which refill fuel at their outlets.
“Through this each and every lorry can be tracked, and any deviation from its original route would be immediately notified to the BPCL officials. Moreover, our systems ensure safe movement of petroleum products thus contributing to public safety,” said Linssen.
Beginning their operation in Technopark 11 years back with just five staff, ARS has come a long way and currently have 80 professional working in their office in Hague, besides 110 working in their software development and back office operations at the Technopark campus in Thiruvananthapuram.
“We are now one of the top companies in Europe which provide total transportation solutions in vehicle management, enforcement and tolling, traffic information and management and public transport information,” said Linssen.
“All these products have been developed and also tested at our Technopark office. And now we are ready to enter the Indian market in a big way because, it is just a question of fine tuning our products — doing good business in Europe,” added Linssen.
ARS has now decided to expand their operations in the country, and their next stop is Mumbai, and then Delhi, besides expanding their Technopark operations to take the total workforce to 500 professionals in the next three years.
“Our Delhi office would be more a marketing office, than a development centre because we will have to do trial runs for our clients when it comes to our services that we offer in the transportation and traffic domain,” said Linssen.
“India offers a huge scope as there are tolls being set up on many new roads. Our system, when set up, will make tolling easy for the vehicle owners and also the one who runs the toll, as there would be no queue near the toll gates,” said Linssen.
Another product which ARS expects to sell like hot cakes — is the traffic enforcement software — enables the enforcement authorities to track each and every vehicle sitting and any over speeding of the vehicle would instantly be alerted.
Apart from BPCL, the second Indian client of the ARS is the Airports Authority of India.
Currently, the Chennai and Kolkata airports have been equipped with security features such as lost baggage detection, crowd control and to track unusual human movements.
The ARS financial side also has seen exponential growth — it has grown 100 times with their turnover touching 25 million euros in the past three years. With the huge Indian market in front of them, things are expedited to be rosy for them.
“We already have secured substantial orders from India worth Rs.12 million in the first quarter of this year,” Linssen added.
News Sourced from “The Economic Times”
