When it comes to transporting people, self-driving vehicles, ride-hailing services, as well as bike-sharing businesses, are grabbing the headlines. The transport industry and technologies associated with it certainly are very interesting. For many years, people have dreamed about kicking back and letting their vehicles drive them to their destination and park themselves. 

People love their mobile phones and the convenience of applications that bring vehicles to their doorstep with one simple tap of the screen. The increase in global interest when it comes to bike riding, dockless bike-sharing, and dedicated bike lanes has gotten a lot of attention over the years, especially in social media. But all the coverage is disproportionate to the number of riders using the services compared to people still doing things the old-fashioned way: driving their vehicles by themselves. 

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People still love to drive their car

In 2017, there are at least 267 million registered public vehicles in the United States. By orders of magnitude, it is still a small percentage compared to the number of people using an automated or driverless vehicle, carpooling, ride-hailing services, walking, or other types of transportation. 

For example, according to the University of California Davis Institute of Transportation Studies 2017 report, at least two million people are using ride-hailing services, which is only 0.75% of the total number of registered vehicles in the United States. Not only that, according to the 2016 report from the United States News and World Report, other means of transportation are mere blips compared to the number of people driving their vehicles by themselves.

5% of workers in the United States use trains and buses as their mode of transportation

2,7% of people walk from their homes to their work

0.6% prefers riding a bicycle to work

The problem here people is not the amount of space in the area.

All cars on the road will eventually need to get to their destination and look for a perfect spot to park. Unless they have their spot (driveway, designated spot, paid stall), drivers need to use dedicated private or public parking. As most motorists in any metropolitan area will tell you, finding the right spot is not an easy task. 

Visit this site to find out how much space the United States spends on parking.

According to INRIX, an expert in analyzing the transportation industry, Americans spend at least 17 hours every year looking for a place to park their vehicles. This wasted time increases dramatically in areas with congested traffic like Los Angeles (85 hours per year) and New York (107 hours per year). 

According to reports, this pointless driving has substantial social, economic, health and environmental impacts. First, the financial implications for people amount to more or less $350 per driver every year in time and fuel. This economic impact goes beyond people and to the country’s economy in general. 

A reported 60% of survey respondents said that they avoid driving their cars to airports, shopping sites, sports centers or stadiums, and other destinations with busy traffic because of the challenges associated with finding a parking spot. All this searching for a spot results in at least $73 billion, a significant impact on the American economy.

To avoid a possible ticket or fine (usually cost drivers $2.6 billion), drivers spend another $100 every year to overpay parking meters and garages to avoid tickets or fines. It adds up to at least $20 billion in overpayments. In addition to overpaying and wasted time, the majority of the respondents (61%) say that they are stressed by finding spots. 

Half of them missed essential appointments. One-third have avoided or abandoned a trip because of issues, and a quarter of respondents say that they experienced road rage while driving as a result of problems related to parking. 

When all these costs are summed up, Americans waste at least $90 billion every year, and the problem will worsen as the population and the number of vehicles increase. Governments all over the world need to do something.

Let machine solve this problem

Let us face it: there are a lot of things machines can do better than humans. From vacuuming or cleaning the floor to warehouse packing and picking to welding vehicle chassis, machines dominate quantifiable and repetitive tasks. If you break down parking into parts, you find it that they share a lot in common with some of the other automated tasks. 

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There are two different approaches when it comes to automated parking: The first thing people need to do is to modify the systems in the car so that it can park itself in a traditional parking space. Cars are smart; spots are not. 

A lot of vehicle manufacturers have done this, and there are at least a dozen models and makes with some types of 

assistance. The other approach is the opposite: Modify the spots, and welcome all vehicles. This type of plan relies on smart parking and not on smart cars.

What is automated parking?

There are different configuration variations when it comes to automated parking, like full and semi-automated systems. A fully automated system is consisting of the parking structure, the storage or bays, the unloading and loading bay, the mechanical system to move the car, and the control software to monitor and run the system. 

Furthermore, the system differs in its structural configuration, which has an essential impact on retrieval time. Drivers pull into loading bays, exit their vehicles, or initiate the storage or sequence using touch screen stadium parking kiosks. 

After running through some safety checks, a mechanical lift will bring the car to the proper level, and it is then shuttled to an optimized parking or storage location. When drivers return to get their cars, they need to use a key, ticket or mobile applications to initiate the retrieval process: this system looks for, retrieve and deliver the vehicle back to the loading bay. 

Although this process is quite easy, a lot is going on behind the scene to help provide a seamless and excellent user experience. In these types of systems, vehicles are not “parked” so much as “stored” temporarily. As such, drivers cannot simply walk to their cars; they need to depend on the system to park, as well as return to their vehicle in a timely and reliable manner.

Edward Bertrand