Automated Garages – Those Mechanical Wonders

At the Linkedin parking discussion group, there is an ongoing discussion on automated parking systems (They call them Robo parking, and I’m sure Robotic Parking would like that, they have become a brand)…

Most people are in favor, talking about the benefits and how central cities benefit from these mechanical marvels. I used to be there, too. I cut down a lot of trees telling the world all about these systems, and their features and benefits. I’m actually a member of the Automated and Mechanical Parking Association.

However, even with all the publicity and companies entering the field, they don’t seem to have caught on, except in places where there is no alternative (congested ancient central cities in Europe, densely populated Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, and….well that’s about it.

My addition to the discussion is as follows:

Sorry, I am not on board with all this. Automated Parking Systems are appropriate usually only where there is no room for standard parking garages. In ancient cities like Copenhagen (Commented on in the discussion group) or most others in Europe and in very compact cities like New York or Tokyo they make sense. However they don’t in places where there is room.
In reality that’s why we haven’t seen very many here in the US (Perhaps less than half a dozen nationwide, and most of them are very small, fewer than 100 spaces. There have been many proposed but few come to fruition.
This is particularly true in the Middle East. It’s a “neat” idea, but when it comes down to signing the contract, people compare the cost of this type of system to a standard garage and opt for standard.
Copenhagen might do well to follow the Amsterdam approach and put carparks on the outskirts of town and have good transport into the central city. It would cost much less and get the same result.
I think that there are many advantages to automated systems but they are oversold by the vendors. They should be compared to a ‘valet’ system. If you do, you would win every time. However to compare them to a standard garage isn’t going to win. The cost and ongoing maintenance issues are great, and yes, reliability is also a problem. None of these are insurmountable, but when a customer is weighing all factors, standard garages tend to win.

Peter latched on to this and commented back to me on the Middle East.

A bit late I am afraid I “missed ” this first time round. No you are not right but for a rather bizarre set of reasons.
 
1 Some of the guys there want to cram so much onto a bit of sand that there is not room for a standard self-park garage. I sort of worked on a project where the developer was pushing to get every square inch of rentable floor space on his plot and so the only way to fit in the required parking was to squeeze in a automated car park. Of course it didn’t work because the resultant automatic car park would have taken about a week to get all the cars out but last I heard the design was advancing with the automatic option because they could tick the box that said right number of spaces provided.
 
2 Its high tech = sexy = I want one.  Can you believe that the RTA in Dubai built a 26 space stacker to be used by designated staff to demonstrate the workability of the system. “if it works for 26 regular users then its bound to work in a 500 space shopper car park.”  Yeah Right.
 
3 It is an indigenous industry, they have a local manufacturer and so it will get preference.
 
4 now the only sensible one, there are places in Dubai and Abu Dhabi where there is chronic parking shortages and little or no land available where a residents only silo/ stacker might just work. I looked at a 14 story apartment block (c56 apartments) in AD with about 30 spaces in a hole in the ground which was just about unusable. We suggested that they put in a silo through the forecourt and underground car park which would have allowed at least one parking space per apartment.  It would not have been a great solution but it would have been better than what they had. The Sheik is thinking about it.

My comment back to Peter:

Super – They’ve been at it five years. Where is one up and running in the UAE?

I’ll probably be eating crow by return email

JVH