The earliest automated parking garage

Release date:

2019-05-05 15:45

Source:

The earliest known automated parking structure was built in 1918 as a parking garage for the Hotel La Salle, located at 215 West Washington Street in Chicago, Illinois. Designed by Holabird & Roche, the garage was demolished in 2005, and its former site later became the site of a 49‑story apartment building developed by Jupiter Realty Corp. In the transportation and construction category of the Fifteenth National Invention Exhibition, the first inventor of a space‑saving automated parking system was identified as Liu Yuen. This invention comprises a通行架 (passage frame) that allows vehicles to pass through normally; a stationary garage complex mounted on the passage frame, featuring a multi‑level structure with each level containing at least two or more individual parking units; a vertical elevator positioned within the garage complex and the passage frame; a lateral moving platform capable of shifting between the elevator and the individual parking units; a push‑and‑lift exchange mechanism that can place vehicles from the lateral platform into the parking units or retrieve vehicles from the units back onto the lateral platform; and a control system that manages the storage and retrieval of vehicles.

The problem of insufficient parking spaces is a consequence of the urban development of society, the economy, and transportation systems reaching a certain stage. In foreign countries, particularly in Japan, multi‑level parking systems have a history of nearly 30 to 40 years and have achieved success both technologically and operationally. China began researching and developing mechanical multi‑level parking systems in the early 1990s, marking nearly two decades of progress. Given that many newly built residential communities maintain a 1:1 ratio of residents to parking spaces, in order to resolve the conflict between the land area required for parking and the usable floor space available to residents, these mechanical multi‑level parking systems—characterized by their small average footprint per vehicle—have been widely embraced by users.

China’s Parking Policy: “Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Development of Urban Parking Facilities”

The Guiding Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment is open for public comment; mechanical parking garages have been included in the encouraged category.