Multi-Storey Car Park

Multi-storey car park also called a parking construction, parking garage or parking ramp, and is a construction built particularly for the use of automobile parking and it usually has several floors on which parking occurs. It is basically a stacked car parking arena (Kahlbau, p.18).

Multi storey car parks are usually used in Hong Kong, United Kingdom among several Commonwealth of Nations countries. In the US, parking structure a term is used, particularly when it is essential to distinguish such a structure from the garage in a home or an automobile petrol station. In areas of Northern America, parking garage refers only to an indoor, often subversive structure outdoor multi level parking amenities are referred to by a digit of regional terms. Parking structure is applied in the Western United States by civil engineers; parking deck is used in the Southeast. The U.S populace is used to the term parking ramp, especially in Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York. The term Parkade is also applied in English speaking countries especially South Africa and in Canada (Automated parking systems, p.15).

Civil engineers and Architects within U.S are probable to call it a parking structure as a substitute, since their job is all about a variety of structures, and that term is the dialect in some of the western United States. Once it is attached to a towering rise of a different use, it is at times called a parking podium. In the United States building codes employ open parking structure as a term to refer to a structure planned for car storage that has sufficient opening in the walls that it does not necessitate mechanical aeration or fire sprinklers, as contrasted to a parking garage which require sprinklers and/or mechanical ventilation but does not need openings in the walls. The openings supply fresh air flow to scatter either car tire out or fumes from a fire must one break out inside the structure (Kahlbau, p.21).

The original recognized multi storey car park was built in nineteen eighteen for the Hotel La Salle at West Washington Street in the West Loop area of business district Chicago, Illinois. It was planned by Holabird and Roche. Hotel La Salle was actually demolished in nineteen seventy six, but the parking structure remained as it had been selected as preliminary landmark category and the structure was situated several blocks from the hotel it was constructed to service. On the other hand Hotel LaSalle multi storey was actually demolished in two thousand and five after failing to obtain landmark status from the metropolitan of Chicago. Jupiter Realty Corporation of Chicago is building a forty nine storey residence tower in Hotel LaSalle’s place, with construction already underway as by March two thousand and eight. Within a multi-car vehicle classification, there is transducer method operative with the coupler at every end of every one car for sensing the pairing powers acting on the particular couplers (Automated parking systems, p.17).

A well known car park system named the Sip ark SSD multi storey car park supervision system from Siemens Mobility has been certified to underwriter’s laboratories twenty seventeen by the United States consistency association Underwriters Laboratories Inc. Sip ark is a control system with specified parking room recognition. An ultrasonic antenna is mounted on top of every parking room and reliably detects if the space is engaged or empty. The operator is therefore able to perceive at all times how many and which parking rooms are filled or accessible. For the car driver, the time exhausted looking for where to park is radically condensed (Automated parking systems, p.18).

At the same instance, utilization of the car park's capacity is amplified while fuel expenditure and carbon dioxide emissions are condensed. Now the company has been given the certification that is necessary for the United States market. This system, already put up in many other states can now be purchases in the United States. UL is a self governing safety testing association. Signaling systems necessities are identified in specification UL twenty seventeen. From November sixteenth the year two thousand and eight, Siemens started presenting the system at the fifteenth the World assembly from two thousand and eight in New York. Sip Ark Company aids car park management and optimizes its ability utilization. When a vehicle enters the multi storey car park, the supervision system dependably takes the driver to the nearby free parking room using the shortest way to get there. For this use, dynamic led display panels are applied in the multi storey car park. They are linked to a management system by means of a Simatic S7 based manage unit after Siemens (Nugent, p.32).

Methodology

3.1 Introduction

Car parking is a major problem in the major towns today. The research methods available are observation and filling out questionnaires. Had I used a questionnaire, the sample would thus have been:

3.2 Research procedures and design

Qualitative Research (Automated parking systems, p.17).

The main objectives of this research are to try and gain qualitative insights of the reasons and underlying factors affecting parking behaviors and tendencies within the market. In qualitative research (Automated parking systems, p.19), we mainly deal with the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions since we aim at determining reasons for certain occurrences and happenings. A small or unrepresentative sample population is also used in this case. Most of all the research and data collection is concentrated here. The transport and/or communication industry is a very distinct and widely utilized worldwide. Therefore, many people share similar problems, ideas and/or also expectations. Data assortment in this research method is said to be unstructured with use of interviews, observation and focus groups being the main forms of data collection. However projective techniques could also be adopted.

Consumer reports conducted on more than 31000 parking space users gave the conclusion that less than 50% of car users/owners were satisfied with the services they got. This is in its way a challenge to access better services or a better parking plan. This was previously hindered by the fact that they could not use their office parking in instances where they only needed to shop thereby causing them a major headache. Drivers and/or motor owners are also not satisfied with their government’s feedback with 40% of those reporting problems stating that no complaint was adhered to as should have been. This design was used when analyzing the results of the study graphically. Samples of respondents are taken and information is obtained once from this sample (Nugent, p.25).

Evocative research design

The research design used is descriptive research design. This is preferred as of exploratory design which is used when there is little known regarding the predicament, we already know much about the problem. The descriptive research design is has a set of procedures and methods that then try to describe market variables. It’s also the most effective design when researcher’s major goal is to get to understand the market characteristics and trends. Since in our research we went to study the parking tendencies and their strategies, then the descriptive research design would be best to use (Automated parking systems, p.67).

Both the secondary and primary data were required in the research. Primary data was used since we needed to collect fresh data for this particular research. Secondary data on consumer preference and reasons for the preference were unavailable thus use of primary data. Information on the extra services obtainable by the other parking space providers were not as important hence the use of secondary data.

Sampling plan

The populace is where the research was carried out, they came from different regions and most of them did own cars and were well informed of the different parking services available. Simple random sampling was thus used to avoid arbitrary or biased selection. The majority of the population used was a combination of classes’ and age groups. A total of 450 people were then randomly selected from this group (Nugent, 2005, pg44).

The research method I opted was that of observation as I got hands on experience that I would not get with a questionnaire. In addition to individual parking room monitoring, the system also calculates zones and alleys. This makes it to be able take into account of those cars that have not reached the parking space. As a consequence, it avoids leading many drivers into a segment in which only a small number of rooms were empty when the cars initially entered the car park. In order to assist drivers choose on the way to the terminals, the current situation of occupancy of the multi storey car parks can be shown on electronic indicator panels situated up the approaches (Automated parking systems, p.7).

The shared guidance and parking space management system for underground car parks and multi storey parking for cars has a modular arrangement and applies standardized mechanisms that have confirmed their value in industrial appliance. This makes sure that the system can be extended without problems. Sip ark has been put up in Shanghai, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, amongst other areas and in many European countries as well. The biggest set up is at Munich's worldwide Airport where sixteen thousand parking rooms that is monitored.

In the Industry Sector, of Siemens AG of Germany is the internationally leading supplier of construction, transport and building advancements. With incorporated hardware and software technologies as well as complete Industry specified solutions, Siemens amplifies the output and effectiveness of its customers in the areas of industry and transportation. The Sector is made up of divisions inclusive of Building advancements, Industry computerization, Industry Solutions, Mobility and Drive Technologies. With very many staff worldwide Siemens Industry achieved in fiscal two thousand and seven sum sales of about forty billion Euros (Barley, p. 17)

In terms of Mobility Division Erlangen and Germany are the worldwide leading suppliers of transport and logistics solutions. With its whole mobility approach, the Division is focused on networking a variety of modes of transportation so as to ensure the competent transport of people and goods. Complete mobility mingle the company's capability in operational control systems for traffic and railway management systems for roadways jointly with solutions for postal automation, airport logistics, traction power provisions and rolling stock for mass transportation, local and mainline services, as well as forward looking service facts .

Automatic multistoried car parking structure helps to lessen the car parking area. In the modern days, where parking space has become a very huge complexity and in the epoch of miniaturization, it has become a very vital necessity to prevent the wastage of room in modern, big organizations and apartments. In places where more than one hundred cars require to be parked, this system proves to be helpful in plummeting wastage of room. This Automatic Car Parking System helps the parking of vehicles, per floor and thus reducing the space used. Any number of vehicles can be parked according to the condition. This makes the systems updated and evens a space saving one. Nugent reveals that this idea is developed using 8,051 (p.56).

A regular braking reference signal is used for all the cars, with the degree of the reference signal being indicative of the braking effort necessary for all the cars. On a specified car, the reference signal is customized and an amount reliant on the pairing forces is sensed. For example, if the sensed pairing forces are likely to accelerate the given car, the reference indicator is customized so that the brakes are released on the particular car, and if the sensed pairing forces tend to lose speed with the given vehicle the reference signal is modified such that each of the given brakes are specifically used on the intended car/s (Nugent, p.57).

An exhibit is provided at the ground floor that is essentially a counter that displays variety of cars in every floor. It informs if the floors are fully packed with the cars there is a place in a specific floor or not. There is facility inform of a lift to carry the car to upwards and downwards. Movement of Lift is always controlled by a stepper motor. A marker with a green and red led is reserved in all the floors to specify whether the lift is full of activity or is it prepared to take the car up and down. If the red led glows that signifies the lift is already unavailable and the individual has no alternative but to wait for green led to symbolize safety and entry. According to Kahlbau, maximum storage space capacity of every floor is required to be ten. Storage ability can be changed according to the necessity (p.13).

Anybody can enter to initial or second ground; the third floor in this model is for very important people. Therefore when very important people are to be entering they are required to enter their code word and they will be taken to the third set aside floor. The code word will be of four numerals. The processor checks for ten passwords and are kept. When a code word is entered, the processor searches for it and it is compared with ten code words. It shows whether it is the precise one or not.

Hill and Rhodes (p.112) concurs that on entry into the lift, the LDR detects the cars existence and sends a sign to blaze red led indicating that the lift is full of activity. It also transmits a signal to motor which makes the motor to turn around. Only after red led glows does the lift take the individual and the car upwards to the floor where the room for parking is accessible. Barley agrees with this and insinuates that when the lift reaches the beginning floor, the processor compares the packed amount to that of the previously fed capacity of the floor in question, and if the first floor is filled, it then goes to the second floor and hence the procedure ends at this point (p.61).

When someone needs to come downwards from a specific floor to ground floor, he is anticipated to focus the headlight onto the LDR located in that floor. Now antenna segment sends indication to the motor that the lift has to be sent back to the particular floor and in so doing sends a signal that leads to a red led glow indicating that the lift is full of activity (Hill and Rhodes, p.108). As soon as the lift arrives at that particular floor car should come into the lift, and the display counter automatically updates the floor as one car less specify the floor capacity has amplified by one. Lift comes back to its regular position and that occasion, the motor that drives it, also stops. The processor sends signal to glow green led signifying that lift is liberated.

When no parking is occurring, the processor is programmed to carry out the job as per the subsequent priorities. First it checks whether any secret code is entered secondly it checks whether any car is entered to lift then it checks if any car headlight is hard pressed in front of LDR positioned in each floor the processer it is like a round robin system (Kahlbau, p.45)

The first task for most individuals in the operation of a new computer is to become memorable with the ability of the machine. The characteristics of the computer best learned by studying the interior hardware devise, also called the architecture of the machine, to determine the nature, figure, and size of the registers and additional circuitry. The hardware is manipulated by an associated set of program directives, or software. If an individual is knowledgeable with software and hardware, system designers can then apply principles of machine operations.

There are certain features that are imperative to consider such as the Internal ROM and RAM, O ports with programmable pins, timers and counter, serial statistics communications. The eighty fifty one architecture has these specific features which include eight bit CPU with registers A and B, sixteen bit PC and data pointer ,eight bit program status word, eight bit stack pointer, internal ROM or EPROM , internal RAM of one hundred and twenty eight bytes, four registered banks, each having at least eight registers, eighty bits of general purpose data memory, thirty two input and output pins prearranged as four and eight bit ports ,Two sixteen bit timer.

Movement of cars between floors can be effected by insulation of sectional garage door interior ramps, exterior ramps, which may take the form of a circular ramp vehicle lifts the least common, automated robot systems, grouping of elevator and ramp like in the smart parking systems (Barley, p.56). In locations that the car park is built on slanting land, the car park may be split level or have slanted parking. Several car parks are independent buildings that are dedicated solely to that use. The designed load of car parks are frequently less than the office building they serve, resulting in long floor spans of fifty five to sixty feet that allow cars to park in rows with no supporting columns within.

This saves land for other requirements and is more economical and practical in most cases than a detached structure, and is out of sight. It also protects clients and their vehicle from weather conditions such as hot seasons having severe sunshine, or heat that raises a vehicle's inner temperature to tremendously high levels.

Historic underground parking of simply two levels was measured an innovative concept in the previous years when developer Louis Lesser came up with an underground parking structure having two levels under six story high rise residential halls at California State University, Los Angeles, which did not have space for horizontal expansion on its one hundred and seventy six acre of the university. The simple two level parking structures were thought as very unusual in 1964; a separate newspaper segment was titled, Parking Underground, and described the two level parking garages as an inventive notion and as subterranean spaces.

Motorcycle parking within multi-storey car parks

Shopping centers that are served by these parking systems can at times be built adjacent to the shopping centre so as to ensure easier contact at each floor amid shops and parking. One case is the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, which has two big car parks that are then attached to the main building at the western and eastern corners of the mall. One more common position for car parks contained within shopping centers in the United Kingdom is on the roof, about the various utility systems, enabling clients to take lifts directly down into the centre. Examples the places are the Oracle in Reading and Festival Place found in Basingstoke. Structure and Integrity

Parking structures are subjected to the shifting and weighty loads of cars in motion, and ought to bear the associated physical stresses connected with them. Expansion joints are applied between sections not only for thermal extension, but to house the flexing of the structure's sections owing to vehicle traffic. Seismic retrofits can also be useful where earthquakes are a problem.

Occasionally, parking structures have partly distorted, either in the course of construction or even years afterward. In July 2009 a fourth floor segment failed at the Century House in midtown Atlanta, causing panicking and destroying thirty vehicles nevertheless, injuring no people. December 2007 saw a car crash into the partition of the deck at the South Park Mall found in North Carolina, weakening its power and causing a small fall down which damaged two cars beneath (Nugent, p.114). On that similar day, one under construction in Jacksonville, in the Florida state collapsed as a mixture of concrete was in the process being poured on the sixth floor. In November 2008, the unexpected collapse of the middle rank of a deck in Montreal was followed by warning symbols for some weeks prior to the incidence, including cracks and water leaks.

Automatic multi storey car parks offer lower building fee per parking slot, as they typically require a smaller amount building volume and less ground space than a conventional area with equal capacity. However, the expenditure of the mechanical equipment in the structure that is essentially required to transport cars inside needs to be added to the lesser building cost to establish the total expenses. Other costs are typically lower too, for instance there is no necessitate for an energy intensive ventilating system, as vehicles are not driven inside and individual cashiers or security personnel may not be desirable.

In addition, automatic car parks rely on comparable technology that is applied for mechanical usage and document revival. The driver leaves the car in an entry module. It is then transported to a parking opening by a robot trolley. For the driver, the procedure of parking is condensed to leaving the car inside an entry module.

At peak periods one might stay may occur prior to entering or leaving owing to the verity that loading luggage and passengers takes place at the entrance and exit place rather than at the parked stall. This loading blocks the entry or exit from being accessible to others. Whether the retrieval of vehicles is quicker in a self park car park or within an automatic car park both vary depending on the layout and figure of exits.

It happens regularly trying to come up with parking planning strategies that the parking demand grows a lot rapidly, considerably and unexpectedly. Modular steel car parks might be the proper answer if the surface area available is not enough and can be just extended upwards or whenever it is not possible to put up a multistory parking. The development concept of modular car parks (Lee, p.16), is completed by the modular assembling technique of vertical and horizontal fundamentals with a ceiling built of concrete and tarmac, however supplementary modular units can help build a parking in diverse sizes and shapes.

Prefab modular machinery of the structure makes every project adaptable and suitable both to huge and minute sized areas. These parking structures are usually demountable and can be relocated so to evade the option of converting a surface to parking area irreversibly. They are conceived as impermanent parking amenities for temporary parking demand wants, whenever the parking demand can be managed easily and dynamically included into the planning and structuring of urban infrastructures. There are few cases of parking demounted after many years to give space to the growth of permanent, multistory parking structures then relocated to the neighboring areas to rejoin capably to local parking demand needs.

Cleared way parking

Here the inter floor travel pathway is completely divided from potentially conflicting parking. It offers the safest movement with little delay, it is usually favored for self park design and it’s feasible for undersized garage sites. Its disadvantages are that it causes difficulties to get out and/or in of the straight ramp, having double way circulation lanes on parking floor may be risky, up and down circulation lanes interconnect on the parking floor except when the floor area is so large that every circulation can be reserved within its individual half on one way lanes.

Reid steel can devise and build a multi-storey parking for cars which would be secure, uncomplicated to use and inexpensive (Barley, p.14). According to one researcher the benefit of steel framed parking for cars is that construction can be designed about the car parking and not the car park planned around the main building as would be the case for concrete car parks. Steel framing is light in mass, strong and slender, encouraging large clear open floor spaces, with least floor to floor height.

Creation Purposes

Reid steel can devise and build a multi storey car parks, so that they are secure, uncomplicated to use and inexpensive. Steel framing is light in mass, strong and slender, encouraging large clear open floor spaces, with least floor to floor height. Reid steel has been in design and building of steel framed structures since nineteen. Rated the head in the Register of skilled Steelwork Contractors it qualifies to design and make any type of structural steel job, from light architectural steel to the huge aircraft hangars and heaviest industrial plants (Lee, p.34). During construction the steelwork ought to be galvanized to lower the maintenance and charges and to also lengthen the car parks life.

The steel frame is supposed to contain columns at about fifteen point five meters and above spacing to prevent any columns where the cars go round into car parking bays. Four point vive meters and above, six meter and four point eight summing to fifteen point six. Steel frames normally are set at seven point two centers giving two point four meters spacious car parking bays (Barley, p.14).

Multi-Car Cover

The better part of the multi car insurance system is that one can insure more than a single vehicle with Direct Line and reap the reimbursements of the companies discount on multi car cover. Moreover if one can insure more than lone car having Direct Line s/he can be entitled for a range of enormous discounts, one is multi car discount. This means you get cash off your best for your household’s second or subsequent vehicles that are under cover with the company. Multiple policyholders can be acquaintances or relatives as long as you all probably share at similar address. In both instances one need to verify with the first policyholder that their policy can be associated to your own, because they rely on this knowledge when one obtains a car insurance quote (Barley, p.46).

Insurance companies offer harmonized no claims reduction as part of our immense multi car insurance transaction. If you are the lone person covered on your Direct Line vehicle cover policy and you buy a second car that will then be driven by you only, it will relate the figure of claim free driving time on your first vehicle to a later or subsequent strategy you take out with the particular company. A subsequent no claims reduction is then used on a second or subsequent policy reliant on these years.

Customers who insure additional insurance other than a car having direct line can set aside money on the companies breakdown cover, with breakdown multi car reduction. It offers a saving on those companies’ peak ranks of cover assisting to bring the price of running all people cars down even more. The insurance is also fast and simple to apply for multi car cover online. For more information on cover insurance on can Click on Cover options to discover out the variety of car insurances a company offers offer and one can download car insurance policy credentials if they are in need of viewing all the terms. The procedure is then just to fill in the form online with your option of cover and delicate details, and once your policy is purchased, you would be set to go (Barley, p.34).

General advantages of a multi-car system operator

There is silence of operation from brushless drives and quiet rollers, Safe and even transport of delicate industry stuff, it is Cost efficient and flexible with simply extendable modular system, Intelligent Tele managed management, network compatible, Low maintenance with uncomplicated access and low system wear, Space economical solution for amenities with inadequate space accessibility (Barley, p.39).

Multi-car application

Can be used In house logistics in libraries, hospitals, retail distributors and laboratories cross connecting of workplace and equipment, cross linking of manufacture and storage, material transport and material delivery at assemblage lines, transport of testing devices for quality checks all along assembly lines.

Maintenance

According to Lee, Multi-Car Elevator that has an amount of elevator cars in a particular shaft attracts concentration for development of transportation in high rise structures (p.11). Nevertheless, lack of know-how of the kind novel systems, design of controller for multi car elevator is an extremely difficult engineering predicament. The hopeful approach is the usage of evolutionary optimization to form scratch optimization of the regulator through distinct event replication of the multi car elevator system (Barley, p.31).

The regulator for multi car elevator is optimized for diverse traffic circumstances in multi objective way. By pairing the multipurpose optimization with the exemplar based strategy representation having a very flexibility, sufficient and generalization capability as a controller, one can effectively devise a controller that performs excellent both in the diverse traffic conditions and works sufficiently by generalization in the circumstances not applied in the optimization process (Nugent, p.21).

Works Cited

Automated Parking Systems. Sip ark multi-storey car park guidance system from

Siemens. New York: CRC Press, 2008.

Barley Michael. Transforming Car Park Environments. London: Springer, 2004.

Hill Jill and Rhodes G. Car park designers. Norway: Aschehoug, 2006.

Kahlbau Louis. Multi-Storey-Car-Park System. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Lee Joseph. Protection Systems for Multi Storey Cars (barrier protection). California:

International Book Publishers United States, 2003.

Nugent Miguel. The inspection, maintenance and refurbishment of multi-storey car parks,

Concrete (Great Britain). Sydney: Springer, 2005.

Nugent Martin. Recommendations for the inspection, maintenance and management of car park.

Oxford University Press: New York, 2005.