It all started in early 1900 with the rise in number of Automobiles when considering that automobiles could be left unattended when not moving unlike any other mode of transport of those times. Henry Ford once described the reactions while driving out his first Quadricycle which was considered to be something of a nuisance at public place where horse carriages were in use, for it scared horses. Also it blocked the traffic. He elaborated, “For if I stopped my machine anywhere in town a crowd was around it before I could start up again. If I left it alone even for a minute some inquisitive person always tried to run it. Finally, I had to carry a chain and chain it (Quadricycle) to a lamp post whenever I left it unattended.” (Book: The People’s Tycoon Henry Ford & The American Century by Steven Watts, Vintage Books, 2005). The issue of automobile parking had just begun. However, with time as the number of automobiles increased rapidly, considering the limited space in Europe, serious need of creating unmanned, compact & somewhat automated parking systems was felt. Efforts to create primitive automated parkings began in early 1900 and Paris (France) became the first country to try out first Automated Parking System in 1905 while it took another 50 years to create first driverless automatic parking garage in 1951 in Washington, D.C. Over the time in 20th century, with newer evolution of technologies-better, safer, more compact and more efficient parking systems were developed. Slowly automation was brought in these parking systems.
In many of the current Automated Parking Systems (APSs), an electro-mechanical system is used to optimize the area and/or volume required for parking cars and they are like a multi-storied parking garage, stacking cars in various storage combinations. These parkings may utilise a wide range sub systems to pick up the vehicles from entry point and transport them to parking bays and later reversing the process while retrieving these vehicles.
These APSs are also known by a variety of other names, including: Automated Parking Facility (APF), Automated Vehicle Storage and Retrieval System (AVSRS), Car Parking System, Mechanical Parking, and Robotic Parking Garage etc.
However, with the progression of technologies & by embracing them, the cities, buildings, automobiles, roads, signalling and many other systems are progressively becoming “Smart”, the “Automated Parkings” were not left behind. The newer electronics, sensors, GPS system are being extensively used in regular APS to make them “Smart”. Such “Smart Parkings” utilize latest technologies like IoT, IIoT, embedded sensors, quicker & faster automated drives for pulling & parking vehicles, GPS positioning & Data Analysis for location access as well as many other forms of information processing mechanisms like area coding and slot/bay indexing to effectively match the bays with vehicles for safe placement & quick retrieval.
Global trends
The “Smart Parking Systems” include many other intelligent systems which perform simultaneously in one integrated platform for optimising the process of parking an automobile that needs to be left unattended during its idle time and is unmanned. These new smart parking systems may apart from utilising smart devices in the hands of people driving these vehicles, may also be utilising many simple technologies like floor embedded smart parking sensors, infrared cameras, location sensors, counting sensors etc. to IoT, IIoT, GPS Position, cloud computing and Net connectivity etc. to other high end technologies like GPS, In-Ground Vehicle Detection Sensors (magnetometer, infrared, ultrasonic, radars, Lidars (Light Detection and Ranging), Infra-red ranging sensor and/ or Ultrasonic ranging sensors).
These devices may be part of vehicles, parking bays, parking buildings, back end support system and may be embedded into parking spots, areas or positioned in parking buildings to detect whether parking bays are free or occupied in real time basis. The data can then be transmitted to cloud for matching with the cloud connected smart vehicles matching their location with nearest available parking location, once the person driving the vehicle decides and choses his option to park the vehicle. This kind of real time tracking at both ends i.e. vehicles & parking spaces in real time basis would mean that all the free parking slots of one building would be “dynamically talking” as a single entity to the all approaching vehicles and would literally be pulling the vehicles once the drivers decide & choose the option to park for quick, fast and efficient parking. As of these free parking bay would be communicating with many vehicles, in case anyone of them gets occupied by an advance vehicle or because of internal movement, the other next available slot will automatically take over the pull role till last bay in the building is occupied. Such movement can happen with the help of an App based system. In future it will happen automatically when the roads would have CAEVs (Connected Autonomous Electrical Vehicles).
However, with desired level of complexity needed in these “Smart Parkings” of future, there is a cost impact. However, with continually reducing prices of electronics it may be possible to create more smart, more intelligent “Smart Parkings” at much lower cost as shown in graphics below and that is what is needed.
While considering the larger picture, these smart parking systems can also be seen as a part of future smart cities, which would be driven by an IT infrastructure and by using this infrastructure; cities can enhance the quality of life and improve economic development for its inhabitants. In a smart city such “Smart Parking” will be a good way to collect mobility data for utilising the development of next generation of city infrastructure in new age.
Smart Parking Systems have many benefits over the current automatic or manual parking systems; some of them are listed below:
- Lowers Capital Investment-Lower Space Requirement, Minimal Ventilation, Lighting & Safety Systems Needed As No Human Entry
- Accurate Prediction And Sensing Spot/Vehicle Occupancy In Real-Time & Guiding Driver To Right ay… Thus Saving In Fuel/ Time Saving/ Environmental Impact
- Provides Tools To Optimize Workforce Management
- Safety-Drivers And Passengers Who Need Not Go Into Parking
- Enables Transport Agencies For Taking Intelligent Decisions Using Historical Trends & With Real Time Status Data
- Social Comfort-Increase Green Area In Public Space/ Lesser Stress/ Lesser Time To Retrieve The Vehicle
- Better And Real Time Monitoring And Managing Of Available Parking Space, Resulting In Significant Revenue Generation
- Lesser Possibility To Vehicular Damage
- Enable Various Legislating agency in tacking vehicular movement for better control
- Lower Land Requirement-More Vehicles Can Be Parked Of Same Building Footprint.
- Helps Traffic In The City Flow More Freely Leveraging IoT Technology
Why do we need smart, automated and intelligent car parking systems?
According to a report, smart parking can result in 0.85 Million Ltrs of fuels saving till 2030 and approx. 1.15 Million Ltrs of fuels saving by 2050, if implemented successfully, The intelligent or smart parking system must be proposed for searching the vacant or about to vacant parking space. In smart parking system, from their smart phones users can access data to determine the availability of spots for parking and then pay for them with their mobile phones. The system will also provide the possible shortest routes for the parking from any area of the city. Thus, smart parking improves the utilization of existing parking, leading to greater revenue for parking owners. It also benefits for the environment and plays a major role in creating eco-friendly environment. Smart parking programs are now being deployed in many of the global cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Beijing, Shanghai, São Paulo and the Netherlands. In most of these smart parkings low-power sensors and smart meters track the occupancy of parking spaces throughout the city.
Developing smart parking solutions within a city require standardized data and management; mobile phone integration; hardware and software innovation; and coordination among various stakeholders such as: parking facility owners, municipalities, transportation authorities, customers, and software developers. These technical solutions and stakeholders are the same data structures and development groups integral to making a smart phone-enabled, multimodal, fully integrated transportation solution a reality. In effect, the technical enablers and multi-stakeholder coordination effort behind development of a local smart parking solution creates a launch-pad toward full transportation system integration.
The smart parking can actually transform our urban landscapes, making them more amenable to people rather than cars. With the advent of smart parking and more mobility alternatives to personal vehicles, better use of existing parking will drive decreased demand for the country’s parking space surplus and for surface parking. Cities can further accelerate this system by updating building codes and land use policies to reflect reduced need for parking, a move which drives down building costs and encourages more varied development options. In the end, urban spaces can become greener, cleaner, more compact, and more inherently walkable, bikable and serviceable by a multimodal transportation system.
Indian scenario and challenges
Indian mobility system has remained blind folded to this issue for quite long; despite the fact that in last few decades India’s Automobile sector grew at unprecedented pace (See graphs above).
The automotive market that started opening for FDI in 1991 brought many global players to build automobile manufacturing capacities in India. Combined with the increased buying capacity of middle class of India, people bought multiple automobiles, changed them frequently as automobiles historically have been treated as a status symbol in India rather than a utility item. This led to almost explosion in the number of automobiles on the roads. Unfortunately, while the open market also brought top end world class vehicles from Rolls Royce, Audi, BMW & Mercedes at one end, the crudely assembled e-rickshaws on other lowest end of spectrum, also remained same roads. And if this was not sufficient, confusing guidelines for disposal of older vehicles or their movement including control of movement of many nonstandard mode of transport on the roads, a wide range of mobility vehicles started crowding the Indian roads creating a chaotic & complex mobility network in India. Despite the fact that a lot of work has been done on development of expressways, highways and other related infrastructures, roads within city & their connectivity with highways could not also progress much. While many other systems are being regularly identified in various budgets & acted upon to improve Indian mobility network, unfortunately parking system never got its due importance and always remained the most neglected system in whole mobility chain of India.
Despite being one of the most critical systems of urban mobility network, it was allowed to be operated in a highly unorganised way & despite India having best of Automotives on the roads, still had worst kind of parking system-a highly deadly and explosive combination for creating disorder & chaos and many other socio-economic issues in public places. With out-dated, unplanned manual parking systems lacking any kind of discipline, the general tendency of people in India has been to park their cars anywhere they want to, so that they need to walk minimum. This approach which has roots in non-availability of a proper parking place, causes traffic mess, traffic jam, unsafe parkings, damages automotives and sometimes accidents. As a result of this, a chaotic situation is very commonly found on all Indian roads, so called parkings, markets and public places. The parking system still remains one of the lowest priority areas and is one of the most problematic areas in whole mobility chain. The number vehicles continue to outnumber existing parking spaces. These haphazardly grown horizontally spread parking areas have been one of the most serious social issues leading to congestion and/or choking of roads, eating of pedestrian pathways/ green belts/ water bodies, contaminating the land area etc. These single level unplanned parkings, which many times are created on a part of public road also lead to jumbling of different modes of transportation causing confusion in traffic movement on roads & as such neither lane nor sane driving can be followed not enforced.
Due to such chaos in parking a lot of valuable time gets wasted. For places like shopping malls or amusement parks, it causes economical loss and a lot of people are unwilling to visit these places. Again the customers spent more time in parking & retrieving their vehicles that on other activities and which can again lessens the proper utilization of their time. Another critical issue in these parkings are related to their charges as most of the parking spaces have undesired elements operating them who charge at their whims & fancies. By planning the automated car parking systems we can handle the mismanagement of parking space, provide comfort to people, save on productive time of people, can cause lesser degradation of environment and recover on other unaccounted losses caused by the existing system.
It is worth mentioning that despite the fact that many multi-level parking facilities have come up in recent times, yet the approach has been same i.e. to create multi storied floor space having inefficient use of space (about 40% of space is wasted in driveways). Since nature has given us limited land resource, we can’t keep on planning such parking highly inefficient parking spaces. The demand of effective & efficient parking can only be managed when it is created utilising technology-based solutions to optimize and efficiently use the available spaces. Using sensor and software, smart parking solutions can provide optimum & efficient use of limited space, ease of operations for parking operators and drivers with a real-time map of tracking of parked vehicles.
Epilogue
Considering that India has one of the most complex with dense mobility network, it certainly needs a well-planned focused approach on the way parking system works to remove one of the major bottle neck from the mobility system. It is high time that India catches up the rest of the world by adopting a fully integrated approach on mobility solutions focusing more on the one of the most neglected yet most important cog in the mobility wheel – The Parking System and adopt such parking system, and get away with century-old primitive & mafia driven parking system. With advent of new breed of EVs in near future these smart parking can also become integrated charging hubs of EVs, serving dual purpose. In long run, this would allow the system to get rid of the highly risky fuel storage & pump stations located within the city centres for disposal of fuel, always a threat to human lives and properties, in case of any causality.
Last but not the least, the policy makers must understand the importance of such intelligent and smart parking areas and pay focus in creating them in order to address the growing menace of increased number of vehicles of the roads. With current Government’s focus on infrastructure development, India seems to be at right time frame and only need a little extra push to create these “Smart Automated Parkings” to control the menace of chaotic mobility network thriving on Indian roads.
Prabhat Khare possesses a BE (Electrical) degree from IIT Roorkee (Gold Medalist). Now, he is the Director of KK Consultants.
