Further to...Automated Parking

Someone at the Linked in discussion group asked me a few questions. I thought my response might be of interest:

Perhaps I can clarify…

 I think manufacturers oversell their features, and forget their benefits.  They also tend to stretch the truth a bit when it comes to the time it takes to retrieve the cars. Case in point:

A manufacturer told me that it took between 45 seconds and one and a half minutes to get a car retrieved. Fair enough. I then asked him if ten people arrived at the same time (say after a theater let out), how long would it take to get the 10^th car.  He said – Oh, about two minutes. Now, no sentient being on the planet would believe that. Its patently absurd.

 For a ‘stack park” or elevator valet system, these systems of course are much more efficient and the garages can be relatively large. In New York, many garages are ‘elevator’ garages. There is a small holding area on the ground floor and then valets take the cars up in elevators to park them above. They ride “manlifts” up and down. If you want your car, you give your ticket to a valet and they ride up to the floor where it is, jockey cars around and bring your car down in an elevator. If there is an onstreet valet, say at a hotel in New York, or Chicago, or London, the car is taken to a garage, sometimes blocks away.

In both cases you have to wait sometimes half an hour or more, for your car. It’s just how long it takes.

If the manufacturers would pitch these garages as attendant free valet, and compare return times to those in actual valet operations where cars are stored in garages off site, the return times would probably beat the live valet every time.

 But once again, this has to do with the application of the garage, not with the technology itself.

 Another example – in a condo, apartment building, or office building, the owner could call for their car  when they left their office. It could then be ‘staged’ by the system so when the parker arrived at the pick up area, it was the next one to come out, or if it was a slow time, it was there waiting. Gee, what oil sheik wouldn’t pay big bucks for that convenience.

 As for the cost, consider this. They installed one of these systems in New York City. If was on a site 90 by 100 feet. I’m making this up but it’s like this. The surface lot the system replaced held 50 cars. The mechanical garage held 125 cars plus it had retail on the street level and apartments on the upper three floors. (The car park was underground). The cost of the entire system was blended into the overall cost of the building. The cost per space was certainly not cheap, but a standard garage would have been impossible to build on the site (ramps and driveways would have made it impossible), and without the automated garage, the building could not have met the parking requirements of the area. So the cost of the facility was a bit steep on a cost per space when compared with a standard garage, but a standard garage could not be built.

 In the infancy of this concept, Trevi Park’s Arturo Rossi constantly spoke of retrieval times. He felt that it was a straw man that concrete garage advocates put forth. The time should be counted from when you enter the garage (on foot). You go up in the elevator, you walk to your car, you get in, start the car and then drive out. That can take three/five minutes. OK. You hand your ticket to an attendant or pay it in a machine, and your car is brought to you, that can take three or four minutes. If it is very busy in the garage you can wait for five, ten, fifteen minutes on the ramps when people fight their way out of the facility. So it takes 15 minutes for people to get their car back at peak traffic times, it’s really the same – Smart guy, that Arturo.

 As for maintenance – Its probably, in the lifetime of the garage, less than a concrete garage. people don’t actually maintain concrete garages until they start to fall down, and then spend millions to make it right. My guess is you compared the ongoing maintenance etc to a concrete garage (new membranes, cleaning, painting, security, and lighting, you would probably see that ongoing maintenance for an automated garage was the same, if not less.

 It’s just that manufacturers of Automated garages are caught up in the technology and computer wizardry, and forget that people don’t care, they just want their cars, as quickly and conveniently as possible. 

 One last thing – if it takes 15 minutes to get my car in a standard garage, and 10 minutes to get it from an Automated one, the chances are that I would prefer the 15 minutes.  In the automated one, I’m just standing there, waiting. Smart Automated designers have something for me to do while I’m waiting – watch TV, (even my car being retrieved), drop off my dry cleaning, pickup a sandwich, etc. Makes a huge difference.

 That’s about all I know about selling Automated Parking Systems

 

JVH

Comments

[papolizootte]

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[New York Hotel]

I didn't know they were doing onstreet valets in main city hotels. I liced in London for many years and have never seen one. Also been to new york last year on this great deal I got on the lastminutetravel site, and again - nothing like that.

[M.Omidinia]

Dear Sir,
We are looking for smart car parking system for our hospital. can you help me and give us the best offer and nice profile with that.
Best Regards
Dr. Omidinia]
Moj International Trading

[MK Round Palis]

Another option is turing the car retrieval into an event. They have done this at VolksWagen, Germany.
You can opt to get your new VW handed over directly at the factory in Wolfsburg. All the cars ready for pick-up are stored in two 400 car silos equipped with an automated parking system by PALIS (http://www.palis.de).
The hand over is like a small celebration where you watch your car getting retrieved from its shelf. Recently they even added a car-like passenger-cabin to offer the visitors a ride in the system (for an extra fee).

Link to the car collection event at VW: http://www.autostadt.de/portal/site/www/template.PAGE/menuitem.bfc77284986e65234e72de10100000f7/?vgnextoid=fa512cb11c51f010VgnVCM10000070c7b20aRCRD

[JVH]

Great video. But do you have one that isn't computer generated? That's what your customers want to see.
JVH

[Donald Jagoda]

Hi,

Please view the following video of our new system. This is the future of parking!!!!

Retrieve your car on your cell phone. Your care is virtually waiting there when you arrive. Several ways of skinning this cat. I agree a functional waiting room is essential.
And there is no comparison between conventional and robotic when it comes to carbon footprint.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p--uO9a9RA8

Have a great day,

Don Jagoda
Director of Sales
Boomerang Systems
www.boomerangsystems.com
(586)764-PARK (7275)
donj@boomeragngsystems.com