Automated parking lot system
This is a
very new technology, which is used in the modern world to park their vehicles
within a short period of time. Suppose you are in Mall Of America in Minneapolis,
how long it take you to park the vehicle during the peak hours, even though it
has more than 10000 parking slots. Industrial engineers in Dubai and Singapore
came up with a sophisticated solution for this problem called automated parking
system. There are two different kinds of parking systems,
- Automated parking
- Semi-automated parking
vehicles that
are parked with a computer controlled motorized devices from a drop off
location to a storage area with no human in the vehicle uses automated parking
system. Semi-automated parking is a stacker device that can lift cars above one
another up to four heights in the space of one parking spot. If the
floor-to-floor heights are tall enough, they can fit in to a traditional ramp
parking facility. Actually these parking lots can be seen in New York City,
however these parking lots need human help to work.
Fully
automated parking systems have five general types of movements.
- Separate devices for horizontal and vertical movements.
- Single device that does both horizontal and vertical movements.
- Circular systems.
- Ferries wheel, carousel or rotary lift.
- Individual pallets that can move the vehicle in multiple directions.
You might
think these parking lots are more expensive than the normal parking lots. However
it’s not true in Singapore, Japan and Dubai, because they have limited space
and time, traditional parking lots cost more than this fully automated system.
This new concept is designed to park many vehicles in a small footprint of
land. This is one of the key aspects of stability in modern era of industrial
engineering concepts.
Currently
several automated parking projects are on the book and many have been
constructed. Right now nineteen automated facilities are being constructed in
the United States of America. Many are in the proposal phase. Thus benefit of
this automated parking facilities are unbelievable.
- Parking cars densely, reducing the cubic volume by typically half of parking the same number of cars. This reduction implication for land use, creating green space and walkability.
- Cars can turn off once they enter the parking facility. Since no vehicle are driving and running their engine, greatly reduce all emission and reducing fuel use. Vitalization for emission is now not required or greatly reduced.
- No drivers enter the storage area, therefor lighting, one of the largest energy costs for a parking facility, is at a minimum.
Automated parking
structure save up to 83 percent in vehicle fuel emission, when it compares with
conventional parking facilities. The amount of volatile gases saved by a 200
vehicles system is equal to removing 92 cars from the road each year or
planting 67000 trees. (Arup Engineering 2011)
The concept
of the machine age in the twentieth century has been a huge impact on our
cities. Building and lives has been connected to the complex typology of
movement. In fact the world famous industrial engineer Roger Corman said “A
city made for speed is made for success”. This theory in the 21st
century has been focused on the road with the parking garage with building
type. This parking garage building type by its relationship to the ideas of
technology, traffic, communication, landscape, functionally and the idea of
success lead the way in new sustainable vision.
Following are some links that would give you a better idea about the technology I have described in this article.
This is an interesting and informative topic and you did a good job explaining the pros that are associated with converting to this style of parking ramp. However, you did mention how this is a more cost effective measure in locations that do not have ample space (i.e. Singapore, Japan, and Dubai). Is it just as cost effective to be implemented where there is much less pressure for expanding parking space such as at the Mall of America? Another question that I had is regarding the semi-automated parking and is if the driver of the vehicle rides with the vehicle up the stacking device, pulls into a spot, and then exits? If so, what precautions are in place in case there is some sort of human error or mechanical failure in order to ensure the car does not leave the stacking device?
ReplyDeleteRobotic Parking Systems (roboticparking.com) designed and built the automated car park at the Ibn Battuta Gate Complex in Dubai which opened in 2009. You can see videos at our web site or at http://www.youtube.com/AutomatedParking. We also did the design and supplied all the machinery for the automated garage at Emirates Financial Towers which per Guinness World Records is the largest in the world.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of this before, so I thought that this was a very interesting idea. I thought you did a great job of explaining that automated parking systems were and the many different benefits associated with them. I also liked that you made this issue personal by referencing the parking difficulties most of us have endured at the Mall of America. You mention that the parking lots similar to this in New York need "human help to work," can you elaborate more on that?
ReplyDeleteWeston this is a cost effective method if you thing about long term property as a land. The access land can be used for business purposes in mall of America. If you are gone to mall of America recently, you can see they are going to expand that. So they can use their access parking space for that. Check the videos which I post on my blog. For the semi-automated parking system do not need driver of the vehicle to ride with vehicle up on the stack. its done by a machine.
ReplyDelete