Took the Eurostar (train) to Paris from London yesterday. Its great — only 2.5 hours door to door. Purpose of the visit: To check out Skypark’s new automated facility that supports Cartier’s building in the French Capital. Skypark was called in to replace an existing automated system that wasn’t providing the service the owner required.
Its a perfect automated application. All VIP parking for the company. about 100 spaces five stories underground. Works like a champ. Everyone seems very pleased. I think it works well because of the application. There are no attendants but everyone who uses it works there and can be trained on what to do. It uses the building prox card system to call up the cars and its "robot" lifting system rather than "pallet" seems to be an advantage.
By they way, this is Skypark out of Edinburgh, not Apex Skypark out of California. There seems to be some confusion as to the company names. They are not connected in any way, I"m told. Skypark has working systems in Edinburgh, Budapest and Szepark, Hungary, Penang, Malaysia, two in Sydney, and the one in Paris. Apex Skypark is negotiating contracts in the US and Middle East.
I’ll give you a full report in PT September.
This was the first time I have been to Paris in nearly two decades. The place has changed, a lot. The French are actually nice. They are helpful, try to speak your language, and all around 180 degrees from what I had experienced in the 1980’s.
Thunderstorms were rolling across the city of light and let me tell you, they know how to throw a storm in Paris. The heavens certainly did open. I was able to purchase an umbrella and all was well.
Caught the 315 back to London…Tonight I’m with the British Parking Association at a reception in the houses of Parliament. Will report back later.
All the best
JVH
3 Responses
Nice stuff… tough to keep track of all that is happening. I end up reading 100 odd blogs daily. Plus there is news. You could also enrich your blog by adding current news on your blog… try out the news widget from widgetmate.com
Thanks for the kind words, Mike. If you look up and to the right on the main page, you will see the current Yahoo feed of current parking news, updated hourly. JVH
SKYPARK USA HERE:
Interesting information on the Paris project. This is actually a retrofit of the original Automated Job. The projects that you mentioned were all done by the prior Skypark of Sweden, we own the Patent for the Americas, Part of Europe, Canada and the other parts of the world.
The Automated Systems are growing quite rapidly and we have already broken ground in Dubai for the Worlds Largest Automated facility.