Automated Underground Parking System

[ig2ba]

Here's a video explaining a parking system which was constructed to preserve a historical area in Budapest::

Automated Underground Parking System

It basically parks your car for you, uses software to find the optimum parking setup and this can be adjusted based on demand.

Advantages might be:

• Lower space requirement
• Fewer opportunities for theft and vandalism because the garage is entirely enclosed.
• Less circling around looking for a spot.
• Maintenance costs. Higher or lower?
• No paying for valet parking.
• No parking lot/garage accidents with people driving too quickly.
• No searching for your car on the wrong level.
• No need for meter maids.
• No ticket for parking during the wrong hours, though you would probably still get a ticket for leaving your car too long.

Possible disadvantages:

• Capital costs
• ... and therefore likely higher cost of parking.
  Possibility to be overload in times of peak demand, but I don't know how different this would be from e.g., the Toyota Center parking garage. I would think you could increase ratio of transfer areas (see video) per parking space.
• Size limits. No Ford F350s unless every space is made bigger. I think some might see this as an advantage though.

My main question is this: would this system work well somewhere in Houston? Would City Centre (sic) have been a good place, or Pavillions? Or what about the parking garages at the Galleria? Are there any downtown parking garages which would be better as automated compared to driver-parked?

Also, would there be an positive effects on traffic that could be leveraged from this type of garage?

[mfastx]

Don't know if this would work in Houston, to work it would have to be a very large model, much bigger scale as seen in the model.

[ricco67]

I think it could work here in Houston, but it would have to be in certain parts of town where space is an issue.

The question would be capacity in both the number of cars it can park and spit out. Montrose, the village, or even the Med center would be perfect places, depending on the capacity and speed.

[TheNiche]

If we're talking about downtown, Block 142 comes to mind as a good candidate for a technology similar to this. Nestled in the skyline district, parking is very expensive just as it is...and if a developer wanted to put a self-parked office building on the site, it'd require a very tall parking podium relative to the size of the building.

But this technology would be more likely to get developed in the TMC's main campus. Parking rates and land prices are ridiculously high, and many doctors would no doubt consider it a sort of status symbol.

[ricco67]

If we're talking about downtown, Block 142 comes to mind as a good candidate for a technology similar to this. Nestled in the skyline district, parking is very expensive just as it is...and if a developer wanted to put a self-parked office building on the site, it'd require a very tall parking podium relative to the size of the building.

But this technology would be more likely to get developed in the TMC's main campus. Parking rates and land prices are ridiculously high, and many doctors would no doubt consider it a sort of status symbol.

TMC would be a better choice. You have people coming in for long term at ALL hours of the day and night, visiting relatives as well as working, so it would be a steady stream of people and not a mad rush like it would be in downtown at 5pm.

The pluses would be in that, with the proper technology, it would learn how long a regular user would be and park it accordingly. But doing a quick google of it, there seems to have been some issues about dropped cars. But with anything that is "new" those will be worked out eventually.

[editor]

If one of these opens in Houston, how are the valet parking goons going to take up all of the public meters?

-

I also have visions of a Jaguar dangling at a jaunty angle trapped between a vending machine spiral and the glass front of the machine.

[ig2ba]

TMC would be a better choice. You have people coming in for long term at ALL hours of the day and night, visiting relatives as well as working, so it would be a steady stream of people and not a mad rush like it would be in downtown at 5pm.

The pluses would be in that, with the proper technology, it would learn how long a regular user would be and park it accordingly. But doing a quick google of it, there seems to have been some issues about dropped cars. But with anything that is "new" those will be worked out eventually.

I agree with TMC. Everyone let's out around 5pm in downtown and the egress of cars can't even being handled without a couple off-duty HPD officers per garage. I've never seen a mad rush out of the Galleria either at closing time; in my experience, it just winds down gradually. However, I avoid the Galleria like the plague in late November and December, so I might not be the best person to ask.

I think Rice village would be ideal, if there were ever some sort of expansion of something in the area.

Of course with the present economic climate limiting investment in projects, and the funding structure for infrastructure improvements in Houston in Texas, this is probably just another idea to put on the back burner.

[ricco67]

I agree with TMC. Everyone let's out around 5pm in downtown and the egress of cars can't even being handled without a couple off-duty HPD officers per garage. I've never seen a mad rush out of the Galleria either at closing time; in my experience, it just winds down gradually. However, I avoid the Galleria like the plague in late November and December, so I might not be the best person to ask.

I think Rice village would be ideal, if there were ever some sort of expansion of something in the area.

Of course with the present economic climate limiting investment in projects, and the funding structure for infrastructure improvements in Houston in Texas, this is probably just another idea to put on the back burner.

Now that you mention HPD, I'm sure this would be a great method to secure and store law enforcement and/or city vehicles.