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Poppy

Bridging the urban mobility gap in Belgium

Poppy is a free-floating shared mobility service, that launched their business in Belgium in 2018. They have since expanded their services from Antwerp to Brussels and Mechelen, with a fleet of over 800 eco-friendly cars, 40 vans, and 2000 e-scooters to date.

man rents and opens a red poppy carsharing car
Red as poppies: so far, Poppy offers its carsharing service in three Belgian cities.

Poppy’s aim is to help answer the current urban mobility challenges in big cities, such as:

  • 96% of the time cars are parked
  • 12% of the time spent behind the wheel is time in traffic, 105 hours per year
  • 30% of the city surface is used for parking space
  • 114 MILLION tons of CO2 emission per year in Belgium
  • high and rising monthly cost of car ownership

With this goal in mind, and their ever-increasing number of users, Poppy continues to expand their services in other zones throughout Belgium with diverse vehicle types and brands.

Scaling & diversifying fleet comes with its challenges

However, operating a fast-scaling multi-model fleet comes with many challenges and time constraints. New launches can only happen as fast as licenses are granted and vehicles are produced and delivered.

Another common difficulty such operators face is ensuring their fleets’ round-the-clock availability, and for that, having a reliable telematics solution is crucial. Thibaut Nguyen, CTO at Poppy, states the problem as:

“The reliability of the IoT module was out of our hands. The GPS accuracy, the response time of the module when sending a command, and the dependency on a cellular network were all critical items that were not performing at a decent level. This made us decide to go with INVERS telematics.”

closeup of poppy carsharing car
Parked in a Poppy Zone: that's what the designated pick-up and drop-off areas are called.

Partnering with the trusted shared mobility experts – INVERS

Poppy’s decision to change from their previous telematics provider to INVERS’s market leading telematics solution, was not solely based on the high reliability rating of the INVERS CloudBoxx.

Other factors, Thibaut mentions below, also played a key role:

The permanently open connection with the car that we have via the INVERS IoT module fits our approach, in that it helps us tackle the latency issue when sending commands. Also, due to the number of vehicles, the diversity of the vehicle makes, and models discovered in their system, integrating the IoT or new vehicle models is fast and easy.”

INVERS only focuses on the shared mobility landscape, which makes them stand out as experts in their field.

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Thibaut Nguyen, CTO
Poppy
poppy free-floating provider mobile

We look forward to supporting this shared mobility champion as it grows and continues to adapt to the needs of its users. Thank you for your continued trust and for choosing to have us be a part of your journey!

Find out more

Are you interested in our shared mobility solutions? Get in touch with us and let our experts advise you on which is the best solution for you.

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