Saving Money and the Environment

By Mary Lou DeWynGaert

When someone says parking garage, what?s the first image that comes tomind? Ten years ago, my response would have been something like this: grayconcrete ramps, squealing tires, circling cars, polluting emissions, glaringlights and a cement monolith. Today,a new crop of descriptors come to mind: energy-efficient, safe,secure, user friendly and simple to navigate.

This fall marks the 10-yearanniversary of the first automated parking system in the United States.In October 2002, Robotic Parking Systems, incollaboration with the Hoboken, N.J., ParkingAuthority, announced the opening of the Hoboken Garden Street Garage AutomatedParking System (now under the control of the City of Hoboken), which alleviatedsome of the parking headaches faced by the area?s 40,000residents.The relatively small parking structure (56 feet high on a 100-square-foot lot) held312 spaces.

To put that in perspective, when the garage debuted, the NationalParking Association claimed a surface lot of that size could normally accommodate25 to 30 automobiles. Our newest facility, the Ibn Battuta Gate car park inDubai, U.A.E., is a seven-level,57-foot high facility with 765 spaces within a 276-foot by 98-foot space.

All our garages, nomatter how big or small, feature the same parking system. A driver pulls up to a street-level terminal, shuts off and exits thecar, and swipes an access card. The system automatically parks the car with thehelp of platforms, lifts, sensors, motors and other mechanical gear thattransport it to an open slot.

This design requires 50 percent less land thanstandard garages, while accommodating a variety of car sizes. When readyto leave, the driver insertsthe access card in the kiosk, and the car appears at the exit terminal facingin the correct direction.

There are always challenges in new designs, and for us thebiggest one we face is allowing so much control to be placed in the technology,rather than in the hands of a person. In a worst-casescenario, the system would go down, and car retrieval would becomeimpossible. 

To eliminate this possibility, we deployed GE Fanuc Proficy HMI/SCADACIMPLICITY automation software, which lets operators view every movement andcar location on display terminals in real time and perform supervisory systemtasks as needed. The software?s data store takes input from tens of thousandsof control points, making information about needed maintenance or repairsimmediately available online to the service department.

The software runs on two different Stratus TechnologiesftServer systems, which are designed to prevent failures from occurring. Insteadof dealing with the fallout of a system failure, we can avoid it fromthe start. With this scenario, there is no system failover or data loss, whichtranslates into no trapped cars.

Our automated parking system also has eco-friendly advantages that gowell beyond eliminating pollutants from cars and the need to circleendlessly in search of a parking space. Our Dubai facility reduced CO2emissions by approximately 100 tons per year, with comparable reductions ofother pollutants and greenhouse gases, becauseautomatically parking cars saved about9,000 gallons of gas annually.

These parking facilities also adhere to Leadership in Energyand Environmental Design (LEED)green-building construction and operation metrics, making a significantcontribution in qualification points for ?green? certification.

Technology that benefits the human condition?while also making goodbusiness sense?is the ultimate achievement.

MaryLou DeWynGaert is chief administrative officer at RoboticParking Systems.