Advanced Anti-Terrorism Parking Solutions

Tragically, there seems to be no end to terrorists and terrorism. Vehicles, parking facilities and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have frequently factored into many acts of terrorism over the past several decades. Following are some thoughts on reducing the threat proposed by and to parking garages.

An interesting read on anti-terrorism measures, including parking garages, is “EngineeringSecurity: Protective Design for High Risk Buildings” from the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD). It includes the example of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey being found liable for potential damages upwards of $100 million over the 1993 World Trade Center terrorist bombing in the underground parking garage. The liability was for not securing its facilities in the face of “ample notice” that a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) attack was possible in the public parking garage.

One of the risk assessment parameters described is vulnerability, which includes the subcategories of adjacency, accessibility and structural performance. Adjacency takes into account the location of a building relative to the location of a possible explosion, and accessibility deals with the control of people and vehicles in, under and around a building. Structural performance is a measure of a buildings relative strength for various locations and strengths of explosions.

What seems clear from the NYPD document is that the best anti-terrorism concept for vehicle parking is highly controlled, underground parking…far removed from any building. Putting distance between a building and a parking garage minimizes potential damage from explosions. Underground parking is especially good at minimizing damage to nearby buildings, however it will not be as effective at protecting anything directly above it. Locating parking garages under city streets would be one way to accomplish this; however, there are some challenges to this that may not be obvious.

To be cost-effective, an underground parking garage may need to be wider than the street. Obviously, this isn’t feasible. The volume of an underground parking garage might also be so large as to require major rerouting of service such as electric water, gas, etc. Moreover, an underground conventional parking garage, not located under a building, becomes incredibly expensive since there is no economy of excavation work…for the building and the parking garage.

One solution to the anti-terrorist parking challenge is an underground automated parking system (APS) such as the Skyline S-Park. Requiring a diameter of only 59 feet (18 m), the S-Park APS easily fits well within the width of many urban streets - minimizing the challenge and cost of rerouting services. With a volume as much as 65% smaller than a conventional underground parking garage, the APS requires significantly less excavation cost and space. In fact, modern earth boring techniques can substantially reduce the cost, time and inconvenience of excavations on major urban thoroughfares for the installation of multiple underground APS.

The APS has four additional attributes that make it an advanced anti-terror parking solution: access control, advanced inspection, signal control and the lowest cost.
 

• Since there is no pedestrian access to the parking area of an APS, it is much easier to monitor and secure the area potential explosive devices might be found.
• Because the APS parking area is unoccupied, it is much easier to block communication frequencies from reaching parked vehicles thus restricting or eliminating remote device control.
• Once the driver and passengers exit a vehicle for parking in an APS, the vehicle is available for a variety of automated inspections such as air-sniffing, x-ray, frequency scanning, etc.
• Lastly, the costs for installing an APS underground are far lower than the costs for building conventional parking garages underground.

There are many reasons beyond anti-terrorism to choose an automated parking system from Skyline Parking. Your representative can give you all the details or help you with you high security parking needs.