Place for our Machines .

Place for our Machines .  

Man has always been using  vehicles in some forms for his movement or migration from one pace to other since time immemorial. Even our Gods and Goddesses had their own special vehicles. Vishnu's vehicle is Garuda, Indra's vehicle is Airavat- an elephant, Varuna's vehicle is Capricorn, Vayu's are his thousand horses, Shiva's Nandi  and many more .  And they are very well documented  in our religious scriptures. Of course, these vehicles were symbolic. But since ancient times man has always made different vehicles for his own use. Pets  have  accompanied man  since the stone age. Dogs, cows, oxen, horses, camels and others have always been part of human habitat . To facilitate himself different tools  were developed with the help of these animals, especially for travelling from one place to other . It was not until the 18th century that humans used animal-based vehicles. In 1781, however, James Watt's steam engine changed the world forever. Thereafter the journey from steam engines , to Hydrocarbon based , to  solar and  now to electric vehicles, has been thrilling!

The aspect of human 'vehicle' culture is now dawning on to us . You cannot plan your day without thinking on how the travel is going to be . Either its  your own  Car or a Cab or anything else. Similarly  when buying a home, your will allow a room to be small in lieu of a good parking space for your Car ! It has impacted your decision to this extent.

The world has changed, because the context has changed and now the context is changed because the world  has changed ! One such changed context is your Car parking!  In historical  Indian parlance there is no word for a  ‘Car Parking’ space . Because in those times the vehicles were mostly living animals . Since space was also plentiful those times , they  would adapt to the space which ever was available nearby . Also the maintenance was not very complicated !. Ever since the advent of machine vehicles, the challenges of  its place, space , its care, maintenance, etc have emerged . The churning to find a right solution in the scarcity of space gave rise to a  ‘ Parking’ culture.

At the end of the 20th century, the vehicle culture spread everywhere  when the winds of urbanization began to blow in all the major countries due to globalization . Lot of research went in and different systems evolved for  parking vehicle . Initially it was  ‘simple’ parking on the ground, then came a protected reserved parking under the building, then the  ‘basement’ parking. Later, as the population increased, the parking spaces evolved to ‘ Parking Lots ‘. Further it evolved to two layered Car parks  and later to Multi level Car parks which we all are conversant with  today . To increase the capacity mechanical Car parking devices came in to rescue . These  ‘ Stack Parking’ systems are now a days quite common . Further evolution gave rise to combined mechanical system for a large lot of Cars – which we now call as Puzzle Parking systems.  The system is further modelled in different formats i.e  Automated system, Rotary system , Palates system etc. These mechanised systems are cost intensive  and hence  are used at Public Parking spaces , where there is chance of revenue generation . 

The horizontal spread of Parking is limited by the space available , this gave rise to  the vertical spread. The system of ‘ Tower Parking’  came in existence . Where there is very little space for parking , the  tower system can be planned as  attached to the Tower. For a Independent standing Tower system a Rotary Parking is also available now a days .

Tall buildings are not an option  but a compulsion in any densely urbanized places. The challenge of accommodating a specific Cars is a constraint to work with . Given this situation  various forms of systems are evolved in the industry to cater to the different case scenarios. From a simple stack park, to triple stack , to Pit parking  , to Puzzle , to  automated Puzzle, To rotary Puzzle , to Tower Puzzle , to Tower Rotary , to slanted Parking system , the journey is endless !

In this  process of  providing  solutions to the endless demand  , no wonder one day you might come across a  Parking solution which parks your Car in the Space !