Feu Routier -- Garbarini Fareco

DOCUMENTS

Nova

historic

1950's

Vision II

Internationally, Garbarini Fareco is present on several continents. Like the other French manufacturers of SLT, its products are found in French-speaking Africa (Benin, Niger...), in Asia (Viet Nam), as well as in the Maghreb with more recent markets (Morocco). In Europe, the Fareco Gallery junction controller is marketed in Belgium by the Macq company (Charleroi tram in particular).

Agir controller

Design 2000 signal

(1980s)

In the fall of 1996, Garbarini was placed in receivership. The company will be saved by its takeover by the French group Fayat from the Commercial Court of Nanterre. It's the end of the Garbarini family saga, but the development of quality products will continue both in traffic regulation (Gallery controller), and in visualization (Feux de France for the avenue des Champs-Elysées, Diapason, Vision ).

Faced with the fall in public orders due to a tense economic context and an extension of the lifespan of traffic lights thanks to LED sources, Garbarini Fareco has to diversify its activity with the development of automated control equipment. (red light radar and on-board mobile speed radar).

In 2012, the Fayat group adopted a new visual identity. The historic name Garbarini was then discarded in favor of Fareco. New display ranges are marketed (Agena, Dyaphane), with mixed success, the flagship product remaining the Vision lights.

André Garbarini died in 1958, it was then his wife who took over the management of the company. The diversification of signaling products will take place during the 1960s with the development of new intersection controllers (M157 and M158), new display equipment (Standard M68), and many light signaling equipment such as bollards , panels or pavement studs.

The company will remain a family business since the founder's granddaughter, Micheline Garbarini, will in turn take over the management of the company. The company logo retains the initials of its founder ("AG") which will also be present in all the names of the controllers (Mag, Modulag, Gama...), while the visualization products are named with a "M" for the first name of its leader, Micheline (M68, M73...).

The arrival of electronics in Garbarini products will take place at the beginning of the 1980s with the development of the first wired logic electronic controllers, then microprocessors (1984) with the famous Agir, of which 5200 copies will be sold. by Garbarini.

At the beginning of the 1980s, a shift was also made in the design of traffic signals with the arrival of the Satellite 84 range, designed in polycarbonate and with a very particular design which would make it successful until the 2000s. the first range to be equipped with light sources with light-emitting diodes, the patent for which was filed by Micheline Garbarini in 1987.

The first electromechanical intersection controller for the Garbarini establishments was developed in 1935. It entered service the following year on Avenue de Neuilly in Paris. The activity of the company is then exclusively concentrated on urban and road electrical signaling.

After a downturn in industrial activities caused by the Second World War, the rise of the Garbarini company will take place after the war, in the wake of the rise of the automobile and road signs. A first range of traffic lights was marketed in the early 1950s, it consisted of a main traffic light and a circular pedestrian signal. These first signals designed by Garbarini will come in several forms: single-color flashing light signaling dangerous intersections, traffic repeater or even railway signals.

1927

1925

The André Garbarini establishments were founded in 1921 in Courbevoie, in the Seine (now known as Hauts de Seine). Engineer from the higher school of electricity, André Garbarini develops refrigerators for boats and parabolic gas heaters. The latter, which he will name "Garba", will be marketed throughout Europe and will earn him numerous prizes and awards that will make him famous.

In 1929, André Garbarini created the first electric flasher, which was intended for use in railways and city services. The Garbarini company's road signaling activity began in the wake of the development of the marking of level crossings with panels equipped with reflectors (ancestor of the reflector).