Automated Parking Systems - Parking Space Sizes

If the primary goal of automated parking systems (APS) is to minimize the footprint and volume needed to park cars, making the all parking spaces in the APS the same size works against that goal.

Cars come in all sizes, from microcars such as the Peel P50 (54in/136cm long and 41/104cm wide) to luxury sedans such as the Audi A8 (202in/513cm long and 77/195cm wide). Two P50s actually take up less space than a single A8. These are extremes, of course, but they point out an interesting challenge for automated parking systems design: what size to make the parking spaces.

Sizing all APS parking spaces to accommodate the largest car wastes space. Sizing them all for less than the largest size of car risks turning away some percentage of customers. So, what’s the answer?

Perhaps the best answer is having parking spaces of different sizes - one size for compact or mid-size cars and one size for larger cars. Than pick a ratio for the number of each size parking space. 70% mid-size/30% full-size; 80/20; 60/40? Local statistics about car sizes probably provides a guide for this ratio.

This multi-size parking space solution requires one other thing: a means to determine the size of each car entering the APS. With information on the car size, the APS control system can place each car in the smallest possible parking space…minimizing the APS size while maximizing the number of parking spaces.

One other thought on the subject of different sized parking spaces: can it be done with a pallet system? It may be possible but potentially degrades parking and retrieval times to the point of being impractical.

Of course, your Skyline Parking representative will be happy to provide more details on its automatic car (dimension) scanning system and how best to optimize multi-size parking spaces.