In San Francisco, Sydney, New York and London, a driver spends between 3.5 and 14 minutes searching for a space each time they park according to a report by UCLA professor Donald Shoup who synthesised studies from 70 years of research on the subject.
"Between 8% and 74% of traf¬fic in congested downtown areas is caused by people cruising for parking," he revealed in his report back in 2001. And this will only get worse.
According to Motor Trader mag-azine, last year saw yet another record being set for the Malaysian auto industry as the total industry volume (TIV) reached 627,753 units. This was a 4.6% (27,630 units) increase over 2011 *s TIV, which now becomes the second highest in the history of Malaysian new vehicle sales, and the Malaysian Automotive Association (MAA) forecasts annual growth of between 2.1% and 2.4% till 2017.
With record sales and dwin¬dling space for parking, this only means one thing for city folks - worsening traffic and parking congestion. However, one Japanese com¬pany is looking to change this through a state-of-the-art parking system that might just save us from this nightmare.
As IHI Transport Engineering Malaysia Sdn Bhd sees it, the need for more parking space and a scarcity of available land are two factors that drive the need for the use of its system. Although not new to Malaysia, mechanical or automated parking systems are still rare enough to be still unfamiliar to many of us.
The concept is something that we have yet to come to adopt widely, but in countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, mechan¬ical parking systems have eased congestion tremendously.
One of the earliest uses of an automated parking system, which consisted of a groundbreaking multi-story concrete structure with an internal elevator to trans¬port cars to upper levels where attendants parked the cars, was in 1905 at the Garage Rue de Ponthieult, Paris, France.
Over the years, the use of automated parking systems have grown but it languished in the US in the 1990s.
However, at the same time, Europe, Asia and Central America began installing more technically advanced automated parking systems and by the early 1990s, nearly 40,000 parking spaces were being built annually in Japan.
As of last year, there were an estimated 1.6 million automated parking spaces in Japan IHI Transport Engineering, a subsidiary of IHI Group of Japan, was established in Malaysia in 2011 to introduce their mechani¬cal parking systems here. "For many decades, IHI Group has been providing automated parking systems manufactured by Ishikawajima Transport Machinery Co Ltd, which is the largest subsidiary company of IHI Corporation," said managing director Yukihide Kamba.
"Our system has won many prizes for improving the infra-structure of Japanese cities and solving the problem of parking bay shortages," he added.
How it works
Making use of cameras, com¬puters, sensors and mechanical components to move a car, the automated parking system takes a vehicle through the garage and parks it in an empty slot.
Depending on the manner in which they transport the car frorr entry to the parking spot, there are two types of automated park¬ing systems, horizontal platforms or vertical lifts. In both systems the car is driven into the multi-storied garage as usual.
According to the company's sales and business development director Naoya Hagita, carousel parking allows the entire inner area of the building to be used for parking.
"Parking spots of the eleva¬tor-type and carousel-type-tower parking are designed for different sizes of the vehicles.
He further added: "IHI multi¬level parking systems include parking spots that can be moved through the structure of the park¬ing.
"This feature allows the garage to be totally filled with cars, leav¬ing only one free slot for the sys-tem to operate.
"Pallets move through the sys-tem automatically, forwarding the vehicle to the driver on the ground level.
"IHI multi-level parking systems allow two, three or four times the usual parking methods in the same space inside a building or underground." While the driver shuts down the engine, secures the park¬ing brake and steps out of the car after the car is placed on the ramp, sensors analyse the vehicle to determine its size and overall shape. The mechanical arms of the building are set in motion once the driver has exited.
The system determines where to take the car depending on the available empty spots in the garage. The car is moved into a spot, either vertically or horizontally using various electro¬mechanical components.
This can take up to two and a half minutes. And collecting your car is as easy as parking it.
The system gives you a card or key containing a code which identifies the position of the vehicle.
Once you scan your card or key, mechanical arms bring your car back to you.
Transport sees Malaysia as a great opportunity for its business as we are currently facing space issues in the city. "It was a natural progression for us. Malaysia has strong parking regulations and we wanted a base in Asean," said Hagita.
The company is already working on a their first project in Malaysia and it is expected to be ready within the next two months. "We aim to secure two more by end of the year and this is highly likely as we have been getting plenty of enquiries from Penang," he said.
Despite its hefty initial cost, automated parking systems are surely the way of the future.
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