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Copyright © LK 2002 All rights reserved
Articles:
* Car Park Design - the Devil is in the Detail
* Car Park Engineering Design: Working Together for 'Win-Win' Solutions
* Turning Circles at Public Car Park Exits
* Car Park Design - An Irish Perspective
* The Vertical Challenge in Car Parks
* The Economics of Pay Car Parks
* Car Parking in Towns - A Very Big Challenge Today!
* The Economic Boom in Ireland: Parking Implications
* The Value of a Parking Space
* Cheaper parking on the way?
* Hospital Parking: Cars, Cranes and Confusion
* The Great Shopping Centre Car Park Space Hunt
* Ramps in Car Parks
Introduction
The number of new car parks that have opened to the sound of jackhammers removing plinths at exit-barriers are now too numerous to mention. Some design teams appear to have lost sight of the basic fact that car parks are intended to be used by people driving cars!
Modern car park technology involves the use of encoded tickets to activate automatic lane barriers. A driver must align his or her car into the exit lane close enough to the ticket reader mechanism in order to enter or to exit. This process requires that the car be straight before the driver reaches out to insert or extract the ticket into the machine.
In modern car parks, the typical building structure covers the whole site, and the exit is directly at the building line. Internal circulation patterns in these designs tend to leave only one car length for the turning manoeuvre. This leads to alignment problems and collisions with barrier equipment.
Car park operators would urge car park designers to give serious consideration to improved circulation and manoeuvring designs in preference to squeezing the last space into a structure.
Recommendation
At car park exits, we suggest that the minimum requirement be for a car to be straight onto the exit lane not less than two car lengths back from the exit barrier. This will allow the turning manoeuvre to be completed independently of the ticket processing stretch.
This recommendation will safeguard expensive control units which are usually located on central plinths, for example, when the in and out lanes are immediately adjacent. It will also reduce the potential for damage to vehicles from collisions with raised plinths, signs, etc., and improve customer satisfaction with the whole experience.
Liam Keilthy
CEO of Park Rite Limited 1994-2001.
Phone: 1-353-1-2893746 Email: Liam Keilthy
Copyright © LK 2002 All rights reserved
This article is reproduced here with the permission of the author. Copyright remains at all times with the author, and the opinions expressed are his alone.
