What Is Automated Parking?
Automated parking systems use mechanical internal mechanisms to accept and organize vehicles within racks. Their moving platforms can shift the positioning of the cars that they hold, eliminating the need for people to drive and maneuver their automobiles in and out of parking spaces themselves. Due to this capability, automated parking systems can increase the convenience of parking for users and improve their perception of buildings that use them. Furthermore, these systems can pack larger quantities of vehicles within less space, since they don’t need to account for drivers and pedestrians within their storage areas. When your property land is limited, getting an automated parking system is an ideal solution that adds more parking spots vertically rather than laterally as a typical lot would.
Despite these pros, you may still be hesitant to make an automated parking system a part of your property’s design because of certain concerns or so-called challenges that come to your mind regarding them. In this post, we aim to address the main automated parking myths and debunk them through examination.
Myth #1 - They’re Experimental and Unreliable
The first of our automated parking myths is that they’re somehow too “out there” and, therefore, less reliable than traditional parking alternatives. Automated parking systems aren’t present in most average properties, and many property owners may not even realize that they’re a legitimate option for parking design. Due to these factors, you may perceive automated parking as a technology that’s new and experimental, which could make it seem risky to use. However, the truth of the matter is that automated parking systems were first conceptualized and built as far back as 1905. At that time, the innovators constructed the Garage Rue de Ponthieu in Paris. This parking structure had several levels and an elevator inside to move vehicles between them, though it still required trained staff to move the cars into and out of the elevator to park them.
The idea of automated parking stuck with people and in 1920, when engineers created a paternoster parking system. It was set up as an upright rotating wheel, with cars able to enter and exit when compartments reached the lowest point. It showed the space-saving potential of such systems. From there, technology continued to advance and new inventors tackled the challenges associated with parking. Eventually, they created the modern automated parking systems you see today in the 1990s and they successfully implemented these in properties in the US, Europe, Asia (especially Japan), and Central America. Automated parking has thus had decades to show its effectiveness in application.
Myth #2 - They’re Not Safe for Vehicles
Since you must leave vehicle movement to the system, you may feel that automated car parking systems aren’t safe. It is indeed an understandable concern to bring up the possibility of them malfunctioning, which could lead to damages to the vehicles that they handle. In reality, though, automated parking systems are safer than normal parking garages or lots. Designers always keep safety in mind to reduce the occurrence of system errors and work to ensure that the systems don’t handle cars hazardously even when problems arise. With continual research and development, automated systems are only rising in their safety capabilities as well.
What’s more, the way that automated parking systems function eliminates many of the risks related to leaving your vehicle in a parking spot. Automated systems place cars in enclosed spaces that are inaccessible to the public. This makes it impossible for vandals to harm your automobile or for criminals to break into it for the purposes of pilfering your belongings or the vehicle itself. Since the moving platforms within the systems operate with measured mechanical precision, your car is no longer vulnerable to the accidental denting and grazing that you deal with in parking facilities where people drive. In essence, your automobile is cradled within a protective shell when you entrust it to an automated system.
Myth #3 - They’re Prohibitively Expensive
Another one of the big car parking system myths is that they’re unobtainable unless you have a large budget. It makes sense that building an automated car parking system will require an investment of funds because this is the case for regular parking facilities as well. Their sheer size and importance make their costs high. Even within this paradigm, though, people sometimes believe that automated parking is prohibitively expensive to construct. When all is said and done, automated systems are similar in cost to parking garages, however. They may even end up necessitating smaller funds because of the fact that builders don’t need to make multiple full-scale floors as they do with garages.
You should also weigh the interconnected savings that you can make by selecting an automated parking system over a normal parking garage. Because automated system structures are more compact, they don’t call for as much land. It follows that with this come lower development costs and potentially less extensive construction overall. Workers will not need to dig as much, nor will they need to include structural elements such as ramps and lanes for cars. Automated parking doesn’t contain pedestrian fixtures like stairs and elevators either, because there are no people walking around inside them. All this makes creating them far more feasible and addresses one of the common challenges to installing automated parking systems—the financial investment. All in all, automated parking garage costs are lower than you might initially think.
Myth #4 - They’re Not Worth Operating
Once you get beyond the initial value, you might still hold to another myth about automated parking systems, namely that they aren’t worth operating in the long run. Since they function on their own, it can seem like their operating costs are high, since they’ll need maintenance as the years go by. But taking into consideration all their beneficial traits, automated parking systems are clearly worth acquiring for your building. You can look at the many factors that you no longer need to worry about to realize this truth. With no drivers or pedestrians passing through them, automated parking systems do not expend energy on ventilation and lighting and usually call for fewer staff members to oversee them. Moreover, there are no issues with fading parking spot lines or damaged floors that appear with use and elemental exposure, thus requiring less maintenance. These differences translate to savings in energy and maintenance in comparison to parking garages.
Due to their superior vehicle capacities, automated parking systems also present larger opportunities for increasing your building’s supplemental revenue if you charge people to use the spaces inside them. Typically, you would need to input lots of money and time into expanding your parking facilities to achieve a comparable number of spots. Even then, people would need to walk farther to go to and from their vehicles than they do when they simply drop off their cars at the entry gate of an automated system.
That’s the last of the automated parking myths. With the practicality of automated car parking systems made clear here, you should get in touch with Harding Steel if you want to learn more about them and are thinking about making them a part of your property. Call us today.
