Automated parking

Automatic underground car storage in Thessaloniki, Greece The first historical mention of an automated garage was in a 1931 Popular Mechanics article which featured an underground garage where the car was taken to a parking area by a conveyor then an elevator to shuttles mounted on rails [11] The first Kent Automatic Garages were already in service. Automatic multi-storey car parks provide lower building cost per parking slot, as they typically require less building volume and less ground area than a conventional facility with the same capacity. However, the cost of the mechanical equipment within the building that is needed to transport cars internally needs to be added to the lower building cost to determine the total costs. Other costs are usually lower too, for example there is no need for an energy-intensive ventilating system, since cars are not driven inside and human cashiers or security personnel may not be needed. Automated car parks rely on similar technology that is used for mechanical handling and document retrieval. The driver leaves the car in an entrance module. It is then transported to a parking slot by a robot trolley. For the driver, the process of parking is reduced to leaving the car inside an entrance module. At peak periods a wait may occur before entering or leaving because loading passengers and luggage occurs at the entrance and exit location rather than at the parked stall. This loading blocks the entrance or exit from being available to others. Whether the retrieval of vehicles is faster in an automatic car park or a self park car park depends on the layout and number of exits.

[edit] Modular car park

It happens frequently trying to develop parking planning strategies that the parking demand grows often too quickly, significantly and unexpectedly. Modular steel car parks could be the proper solution if the surface area available is not sufficient and can be just expanded upwards or whenever it is not feasible to build up a multistorey parking. The development concept of traditional build modular car parks is made by the modular assembling method of vertical and horizontal elements (such as columns and beams) with a ceiling made of concrete and tarmac:

more modular units can build a parking in different sizes and shape. The solution makes possible to develop a parking structure even in case of particular conditions or constraints, such as archaeological sites or city centres, because it allows:

To virtually double the parking surface without leaving any footprint on the ground, as no settlement for excavations or traditional foundations is needed; To double the parking surface by means of a light steel one deck car park system. Prefab modular components of the system make each project versatile and suitable both to large and small sized areas.

These parking structures are generally demountable and can be relocated so to avoid to make the choice of converting a surface to parking area irrevocably. They are conceived as temporary parking facilities for temporary parking demand needs, whenever the parking demand can be managed dynamically and easily integrated into the planning of urban infrastructures. There is actually a number of cases of parking decks which have been demounted after a few years - to give room to the development of permanent, multistory parking structures- and relocated on the surrounding areas to reply efficiently to the local parking demand needs