Facebook  Twitter  Linkedin  YouTube
Sunday , 24 March 2024

Considerations in a Multilevel Parking System

Clearly, we cannot ignore two wheelers while building parking facilities. Next is the ratio of four wheelers to two wheelers. Parking adequacy requirements vary depending on the usage of the facility – whether it is for an airport, a commercial office, a transportation hub, a retail mall, a hospital etc- and also on the city.

So how do we accommodate these two wheelers as a part of the design? For this, besides providing adequate two wheeler parking spaces, there should be separate entry and exit ramps and ingress & egress points etc so that two wheeler and four wheeler traffic do not interfere with each other and there are no conflict points between the service provided for two wheelers and four wheelers.

Some of the other factors in parking design engineering are the external traffic management, internal design, lighting, signage, traffic management rules etc. A consideration in the external traffic management is whether there are right entry and exit facilities. This consideration is crucial when designing a parking facility in some situations, for example, when it is sitting on a traffic T-junction. In this case, with traffic coming in from many directions, it is very difficult to decide which should be the entry and exit points, and suddenly we are confronted with this kind of situation after the property gets the Occupancy Certificate. To avoid this situation, sometimes the developer gets traffic signals from the Traffic Department so that the traffic is channelized properly as it enters the property. The other challenges from the external traffic management aspect are pedestrians and vehicles. In India, it is a difficult situation due to the lack of discipline among both the pedestrians and vehicles – you have two wheelers in places where pedestrians are supposed to be walking and there are pedestrians walking in areas which are supposed to be only for cars. This situation exists practically in all cities in the country.

So how do we ensure that the pedestrians are separated from the cars and how do we ensure that the two wheelers are separated from the four wheelers? In a particular parking facility designed by CPS, there was traffic coming in from main roads from all the three directions. The property was a mixed use development – with a shopping centre, hotels, and an office tower. In such a situation, what could be done is to plan properly the drop-off for the shopping Centre and drop off for the offices, entry and exit points – how the office goers can enter the parking area directly without having to interfere with the shopping center traffic. This would segregate all the types of traffic and also separate the pedestrians. Also, the usage in terms of the pedestrians should be well separated so that there is a smooth traffic flow.

One question we ask with respect to the internal parking design is: are the traffic control points well defined architecturally? Many times, there are ramps coming in and the ramp architecture is so poorly designed that it creates many other problems. Further, the parking structure should be very simple. People who are using the parking facility range from the intellectuals to the common man. The ramps should have enough width and radius. CPS has encountered situations where the ramp’s radius is as small as 3.5m. With an average car length of about 2m, this can be a very difficult situation. The next issue is whether we have the flexibility to shift parking between different levels. This is quite important from an energy usage point of view. On weekdays, the parking lot owner may not want all the levels to be lit and ventilated because of low traffic volumes.

The next aspect of a parking system is lighting. Often, lighting designers do not put adequate lighting in parking lots, just like in a recent project done by CPS where the lighting consultant and provider argued that considering the level of lighting that he was being asked to provide, it seemed people wanted to read a newspaper in the parking lot. But the fact is that parking lots need to be lighted very well and adequately from the standpoint of security; users should feel secure about their vehicles and about themselves.

There are very well defined international standards regarding the kind of lighting necessary for parking lots. E.g. there is the standard which describes the kind of lighting needed for a best-in-class parking lot. Today, most of the parking lots in India use conventional lighting. We have LED lighting which is much more energy efficient than conventional lighting. The standard is 80-100 lux in the driveways and 50-60 lux in the bay areas. The bays do not need to be as much lighted as the driveways. The interiors should have about 200 lux.

Next important factor is signage which can be informatory or warning. They can be divided into two types: static or dynamic. Dynamic signages display all kinds of information in one sign. There are standard norms for signage; some places use IRC norms and others use different norms, depending on the purpose of the signage. The signage must be simple and must easily be visible and distinctly readable. Overdoing signage is always good, it does not do any harm, so it is better to have them in as many places as possible, since we are grossly under doing them as of now.

Theming a parking facility is also important, especially in multi level parking facilities. There can be alpha numeric themes, colour themes, or some animal themes too. Having an animal theme with visuals of kangaroos, giraffes, antelopes etc which are not so commonly found in India, is effective since they create a lasting impression on the mind and makes it easy for the driver to retrieve the car from the particular parking level he has parked the car in. This is quite effective in very large parking lots such as those with 9000 and more car spaces. The driver would find it easy to remember and retrieve the car.

Another consideration is the geometrics of the parking – like the size of the parking spaces. Here there are two factors – what the local municipality dictates and the second is the sizes of the cars. Often the municipal authority asks us why we need a space of 2.5x5m when the largest luxury car is about 1.9m long. The fact is larger parking space is much easier to utilize in terms of design. Also, users are happy with larger parking spaces. Smaller parking spaces can be designed for smaller cars, though that depends on which city the parking lot is located. E.g. Delhi has much more number of bigger cars than smaller cars.

To summarize, a good parking lot is well lighted and ventilated, has good signage, has clear differentiation between the driving area and parking spaces, columns are beautifully tagged and the whole area is tastefully designed with good colours, without visual clutter, creating a beautiful ambience.

Share with: