The
History of Gleike, Inc.
Gleike Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of ATA, a French company which
designs, manufactures, markets, sells, rents and repairs its lines of
technologically advanced taximeters. Headquartered in the Chicago
suburb of Glencoe, IL, Gleike offers distribution, sales and support
of its taximeters and accessories for North America. Gleike taximeters
are designed with benefits for the taxi driver, the fleet owner, and
the general taxi-using users.
The founding of ATA dates to 1977, when Claude Ricard, a young and prolific
French engineer, turned his talents to using the efficiencies and reliability
of technology in taximeters. He developed the first wholly electronic
taximeter, the GLEIKE, which was enthusiastically adopted. The
appearance of this one product changed the face of the taximeter market
in Europe and began a rash of imitations.
Since that time, the GLEIKE meter has undergone constant modification
and has appeared in five new generations, all offering new features
and benefits that meet and often anticipate requests from customers.
Over 250,000 GLEIKE meters have been sold in Europe and in twenty countries
worldwide.
The success of the GLEIKE meter is due in part to its outstanding reliability
and also to its ease of use. Moreover, it has been successfully adapted
to the local requirements of many cities in which tourism and taxi business
are important. Trading on its ability to meet local requirements,
the GLEIKE taximeter has undergone Federal and local tests in the U.S.
and won approval to be used in several major U.S. metropolitan markets,
New York City and Chicago. The meter also has been approved for
use in Canada.
The Gleike taximeter uses advanced technology not only to determine
accurate fare prices, but also helps protect the taxi industry and the
general public from fraudulent practices. These practices, unfortunately
at work in all large cities, often consist of illegal devices which
increase the meter’s distance pulses to create higher fare prices
for the customer. Gleike has considerable experience in with these
fraudulent practices and has created a taximeter that detects and stops
all known means of increasing the distance pulses.
The GLEIKE taximeter system consists of its flagship product, the GLEIKE
MINI taximeter, which is electronically sealed. A printer and
credit card reader designed for compatibility with the taximeter complete
the system, offering drivers and the public a means of paying for fares
quickly and easily with major credit cards and the pending Smart Card.
An electronic dispatching system is currently under development, which
uses the customer’s database to handle incoming calls and assign
taxis quickly and efficiently to callers.
All Gleike meters undergo stringent quality control testing during all
manufacturing steps, complying with the requirements of ISO 9002 to
ensure consistent manufacturing methodology. The company has extensive
ongoing quality control programs, including burn-in testing, environmental
testing, and electrical integrity testing that help ensure the utmost
in reliability and long life in every meter
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