[milliethemini]

Watched a show on the Discovery Channel about robotic parking lots in Japan, Asia and Europe, thought I would do a web search and see if there were any such lots in North America.

Lo and behold, there are!!

For example,
http://www.roboticparking.com/parksmart.cfm

I'm curious to know if anyone has parked in such a parking lot. How do you like it? I assume the way it works ensures no scratches and dings on your car while parked, and probably almost impossible to vandalize..................

[mikeythemini]

Like it - all Tesco's should have them

[Shamster]

what a great idea

[beej]

Still waiting for a Trevipark to be built in London... no sign yet!

[LMB]

Hell will freeze over quicker than that making it's way to the North East.

Brilliant.

[milliethemini]

Quote: Originally Posted by beej

Still waiting for a Trevipark to be built in London... no sign yet!

beej, I had a look at that Trevipark link of yours - that's quite some automatic car parking system!! Quite brilliant, the way that company creates more parking spots in congested areas while making that area open to parks and walkways. Very nice environmental solution

[ImaVunDerBrah]

I just posted in the other parking thread before I noticed this one...

A few years back we were at a mall in the center of Tokyo and parked in one of these 'robotic' parking garages. I had no idea how it worked until I saw our car being lifted up at stowed away. It was amazing!

I didn't know there were any in Europe... and I'm sure they'll never make it all the way over here.

-stef

[Sc00bster]

They have one in Leeds (greek street, If I remember correctly), not cheap parking there but a lot of fun and a great utiliser of space. Park in the grid. press the button, take your ticket, watch the car get whisked away, return, plonk the ticket in the machine and watch you car come back down to you.. Never seems to be attended though so if you lose your ticket or the machine brakes I guess you have a bit of a wait.

Awesome idea, however it had its weaknesses.

Very expensive infrastructure = high charge (probably extra charge for novelty) AND much slower. you cannot have a constant stream of cars in like a normal carpark, the one I used took probably 90 seconds from driving in and the machine returning back to ground for the next car. It may have had 2 lifts, I cannot remember but even with 2 it is no good for constant traffic, say 1 per floor but then that would get messy when the machines rise against the humans. This would be impossible for the constant stream of traffic experienced in a supermarket.

oh, and if they have em in Leeds, there will be dozens in London. Think you will find most are part of private offices / apartments etc where space is low, therefore they are probably not open to the public. I know our private carpark in the greenpark area has turntables etc that you plonk you car on to allow you to go around corners.. as I say - space is at a minimum.

one more thing, they have built plenty of "up to £1mil" flats in my town, you get a car parking space for free with the flat but for an extra £15k they will install a mini lift, kinda like in a workshop I guess. Drive into you space. press the button, watch you car rise up into the air, then drive your second car in and park it under it. I saw that in action when we went to the sales opening day (free champas). that was an awesome utiliser of space, and if you were spending, say £500k for a 3 bed flat or £1mil for the penthouse, whats another £15k to double your car parking???

[andyupnorth]

I used that one in Leeds - left my MINI there - came back and the machine returned a Porsche Boxter - now that's the kind of computer glitch I don't mind!

[KJ_daGreenMini]

The conference center in edinburgh has one, i used it. we had problem parking a Vauxhall Vectra in the bay cos the car was so big, but got it in eventually. Then it just takes it away. we got it back with the alarm lights flashing. lol. neat idea.