Park your car at your leisure

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Realty firms on hiring spree againDLF profit crumbles 77%Realty demand up 15% in Q2‘Property rates to fall 25% in 12-15 months’

: Pranav Poddar

Director

Suvidha Parklift

With all the major cities in India facing car parking woes, the state governments, local municipal corporations, private architects and the builders are under tremendous pressure to look for innovative ways to provide more and more car parking spaces.

For instance in Delhi, current population is over 1.6 crore. The population density is more than 10,000 persons per square kilometre. In the last 10 years, the population of cars in the national capital has more than doubled and at present, there are 18 lakh cars plying on the roads. One would be surprised to know that for these 18 lakh cars there are only 25,000 dedicated and authorised parking spots. The local authorities are under immense pressure to provide adequate parking facilities.

The solution is Automatic Multilevel car Parking Systems as well as “Conventional Ramp based Multilevel Parking”, which are now available in India to ease this pressure and enable them to maximise the car parking spaces available on the ground. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi alone has identified 14 sites for automatic multilevel parking and over 25 sites for conventional ramp based multilevel parking in various parts of the city. New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) have also planned to build such multilevel parking lots.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation also in the process of identifying metro stations where automated as well as conventional ramp based multilevel parking lots will have to be built. The nature of the multilevel parking facility will depend on the location of the metro station of and various other parameters such as commercial/ residential/ industrial density around the stations, existing roads and habitation around the stations.

The Multilevel Car Parking Systems can either be fully automatic or semi-automatic and are suitable for installation in basements and in open spaces outside commercial buildings, residential buildings, shopping malls, and other public places where car parking is required. The most unique feature of these systems is that they can increase the parking space at the ground level substantially, depending upon the kind of car parking system installed and the contours of the space available.

Through one of the semi-automatic car parking systems, one can achieve two car spaces, one above the other, by providing a clear height of only 3.4 metre! Hence, if an architectural firm is designing two basements for car parking in a shopping mall, commercial building it can plan to build only one basement with a slightly higher height and save the additional excavation cost of the second basement. The capital costs, and operation and maintenance cost of these mechanical car parking systems will more than offset the cost of excavation, preparation, building, operation and maintenance cost of the additional basement.

The fully automatic multilevel car parking systems require careful planning and assessment of the space available, traffic flow desired, and the capacity utilization within that space. These systems can be customised as per the customer’s requirements and limitations. Each level inside the parking system can be varied as per the dimensions of various cars, as SUVs would need a much larger clear height than a normal sedan. Automatic Multilevel Parking enable the developers to save height or depth as compared to conventional parking by almost 50%, thereby saving construction time and cost, especially underground, on account of cutting rock or dealing with high water tables. These systems are built for maximising space and volume utilisation also, apart from solving the problem of lack of adequate car parking space for the current no of the vehicles in the city, the annual creation of additional car parking spaces in line with the sales of new vehicles will also have to be taken in to account.

Also, apart from solving the problem of lack of adequate car parking space for the current number of vehicles in the city, the annual creation of additional car parking spaces in line with sales of new vehicles will also have to be taken into account. For example:

* The number of cars estimated to be sold annually in Delhi NCR by 2010 onwards is 100,000.

* The average number of parking spots required for each car=1.5

* Number of parking spaces required to be added annually in Delhi, NCR (Number of Cars X 1.5)=150,000

* The assumption for automated parking as a percentage of total parking requirement=5%

* The number of automated parking spaces required to be annually in Delhi , NCR(5% X 150,000)=7,500

One can save more than 20% on capital costs, and more than 35% on recurring operating and maintenance costs by way of incorporating some of the mechanical parking systems vs conventional ramp based parking. The cost per car space can vary between Rs 80,000-4,00,000 depending upon the level of automation in the Mechanical Parking Systems. The cost of building a conventional parking space is more than Rs 2,00,000 and it is even higher in cities like Mumbai and Chennai due to the high water table and presence of rock underneath the ground. Hence, some of the semi-automatic parking systems are more cost effective and feasible.