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Space
Crunch
Gerhard
Haag thinks America is finally ready for
the parking garage of the future...
"At
first I was a little bit nervous about my
car getting damaged, but I have been very
satisfied with the garage,'' he said. "I
used to drive around for 45 minutes looking
for a space. It's worth the $200 a month
to rent a space.''
Muller said the most he has waited for his
car was five minutes.
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Researcher
Denda said robotic parking can cost
more to build than conventional parking:
$18,000 per space on average, compared
with $14,000 for nonautomated parking.
Denda
said the cost differences lessen,
though, when other factors are taken
into consideration, such as the eventual
deterioration of a parking deck's
concrete structure.
Haag
said robotic parking will succeed
because it is a good thing, eliminating
such annoyances as walking around
a garage searching for a lost car. |
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A
Machine For Parking In
Excerpted from
"CARCHITECTURE"
Article by Alex Stetter
In
the world's biggest, busiest cities, there
simply aren't enough parking spaces to go
around. The frustration of being stuck in
a permanent urban traffic jam is compounded
by the knowledge that on finally reaching
your
destination,
you will still have to find somewhere semi-legal
to abandon your vehicle. In fact, it's more
than likely that half the cars around you
don't qualify as proper through-traffic
at all, they're just fellow would-be parkers,
on their fifth circuit of the neighborhood.
The
logical conclusion is to make maximum use
of the small amount of free space available
by going upwards. But high-rise car parks
have an image problem; people tend to think
of them as concrete eyesores with smelly
stairwells, if they think of them at all.
Companies
like Robotic Parking believe the answer lies
in total automation: machines for parking
in. Mechanical garages first appeared in the
US in the 1930s, but were destined to remain
a curiosity at a time when space was hardly
at a premium. For a brief period in the 1970s
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1980s,
the idea enjoyed limited popularity in the less
space-rich cities of Asia and Europe.
RoboPark
has updated the basic concept by introducing transport
technology developed for car assembly lines to
make the process as swift and smooth as possible.
You drive into an entry bay the size of a single
garage, get out, take a ticket and stand well
clear while your vehicle is whisked away into
the heart of the building-cum-machine. On your
return, the parking robot takes just two minutes
to retrieve your car. With no valuable parking
space taken up by ramps or pedestrian walkways
and no need for ventilation or lighting, this
type of structure is very cost effective, making
room for twice as many cars as usual by cutting
out the human element completely.
Robotic
Parking prides themselves on their product's flexibility.
Their modular parking system can be extended,
relocated, made to fit into any structure and
clad in any finish.
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"Automated
Parking — The Technology
and its Impact on Urban Areas"
Over
2,448 Book Pages Viewed on Our Web Site Since
April 2005
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Since
the first chapters of this book were introduced
in April, 2005, we've had over 2,448 hits on the
book's web pages.
Read
the first 4 chapters.
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Security
and Safety
Excerpted from "Parking
Structures"
Chapter
by Mary S. Smith
Security
design in parking facilities deals with minimizing
the risk of incidents that threaten the safety
of parking patrons and parking attendants.
Additional concerns include the protection
of cars, personal property, cash receipts
and the facility itself. Obviously,
the more secure a facility appears, the more
likely parkers will be to accept and use
the facility. A potential wrongdoer will
normally analyze the situation
before committing a crime to
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determine
the odds of being seen,
and if seen, of being recognized and apprehended.
He or she is less likely to commit the crime
in a facility where security features are
apparent.
Furthermore,
courts
often hold owners and operators liable for injuries suffered in criminal attacks
when the defendant did not take adequate steps
to reduce foreseeable risks.
The
selection of the appropriate security features
depends on the history of incidents in the area of the facility, and the likelihood
of different incident types occurring in various
locations within the facility. The neighborhood
in which the facility is located will usually
have the greatest impact on the degree of potential
risk.
The
higher the general level of crime in a neighborhood, the higher the risk for
incidents in a facility. The process of assessing
the risk is called the security audit. The
first step in a security audit is an analysis
of the
risk of different incident types. If there
is an on-site security staff, obtain the
annual
incident reports for the previous five years
and data on any personal injury incidents prior
to that. Develop an incident history and profile
for the neighborhood by contacting the local
police and the operators of nearby facilities.
Using this information, classify the facility
as one of the following:
Low-risk facilities
are those with only minor vandalism and juvenile
theft problems but no personal injury incidents
and no professional theft activity.
Moderate-risk facilities
are those where there may be an occasional
suspicious person or vehicle theft in off-hours
but there is no reason to anticipate personal
injury attacks.
High-risk facilities are those with previous incidents
of personal injury or a pattern of thefts
that might escalate to personal injury.
(NOTE:
Robotic Parking systems are classified
as low-risk facilities and offer maximum security.)
Facility
security information to be continued in our
next newsletter ... |
Reprinted
in the July/August 2005 Issue |
Space
Age Parking
How do you cram
more cars in fewer spaces? Ask the Germans.
First
to fly, first on the moon, first to invent mass
production. We're a country always on the forefront
of technology. Why then, has it taken us so
long to catch on to automated parking garages,
one of the most intelligent inventions of the
20th century? "It baffles everyone I talk
to," says Gerhard Haag, German-born engineer
and architect, who introduced the first fully
automated parking garage to the U.S..."
Click
here for more information.
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888-ROBOPARK