When I graduated from university and moved into my own place, the only house I could afford was right near a manufacturing plant. At first, I thought living in the industrial part of the city would be a nightmare, but it actually turned out to be fascinating. I quickly developed an interest in industrial equipment and supplies, and spent many evenings walking around the factories to get a better look at what was going on inside. Since then, I've moved to a quiet part of the city, but my interest in industry never waned. Since I don't have the luxury of being able to visit the industrial district anymore, I thought I'd do the next best thing--start a blog about it!
For almost as long as cars have been around the only solutions to parking when out and about was to either park on the street or find a nearby car park, if you are lucky. This leads you open to a lot of potential risks and, even with increased security measures now in place in most vehicles, there were still 52,000 cars being stolen a year according to data from 2015. There is, however, a new way to store vehicles that is growing in popularity across America and is now making its way across the pacific to us in Australia: car stacking with car elevators.
What Is It?
Car stacking is an semi-automated system that will store your car in close proximity to other cars in a storage facility. To park your car in the system you would approach a designated spot, park, and get out at which point the car will disappear into the floor thanks to a car lift that will store your car safely underground. You would then pay either before or after you go out (depending on the individual parking stackers protocol) and you can leave it there for as long as you want. When you come back you simply present your ticket or enter your licence plate number and your car will reappear in the same spot you left it.
What Are The Benefits?
This method of storage allows for a much more efficient use of space as a version of this already installed in Sydney claims to use just a quarter of the area a regular car park would take to house the same amount of cars. We already mentioned the benefits of security from thieves but it also protects you from vandalism and people breaking a window and stealing expensive items from inside your car.
How Can I Get One Now? While this technology will primarily be used in commercial purposes at first it is not unreasonable to see the same technology implemented at a consumer level. There are, however, already companies that can build you an elevator for your car if you wish to replicate this idea in your home. If you live in a apartment block you can petition the management to consider installing this system of parking and, given how space efficient it is, there is a growing likelihood they will consider implementing it as cities look to expand up rather than outwards.