Shift Magazine - October 7, 2019 - 22

DID YOU KNOW?

PLAY to PARK

Today's toy could be tomorrow's parking tech

BY LESLIE J. ALLEN

hat goes up must come
down, and what drives
must eventually park.
Finding ways to make
parking a better experience through innovation is one of the roles of Kevin Bopp,
vice president of parking and mobility for
real estate giant Bedrock Detroit.
One issue confronting Bopp and others
in the field is how to create parking structures that could be put to other uses if
there's less need for parking in the future.
"We are looking at building structures
that are adaptive for reuse. The challenge
that that creates isn't the upfront added
cost, which is anywhere from 30 to 40 or
45 percent more to have level floor plates
and things piped in, wired, so that it could
support residential or office use," Bopp
said at a Shift conference in August.

"The real challenge is the
physical layout, because fundamentally, people want windows and daylight, and parking
garages are not ideally suited to
provide that in certain layouts."
A hint at one possible solution is in the local toy store.
"I think some of the technology you'll see coming
online from us in the
near term leverages automated parking systems," Bopp said. "It's
sort of like, those of you who had Hot
Wheels and Matchbox garages, where
there were elevators that lifted the cars up
and parked them automatically."
Instead of going up and down ramps,
hunting for a space, the driver gets out, and
the car is parked using a robotic system.

GOODS continued from p. 20

What happens when all these robots
hit the pavement is an open question.
Rutter points to the user confusion and
sidewalk congestion caused by electric
scooters and rental bikes as a preview of
the problems with autonomous robots.
"Fixing the first and last mile is a challenge for a whole bunch of operations,"
he said. "If you have little coolers on

Digit in May. Unlike some wheeled delivery robots, Digit could use its arms and
legs to ensure safe delivery of packages.
And Nuro, a self-driving delivery company, has tried grocery and pizza delivery programs through partnerships with
companies such as Kroger and Domino's.

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Taking a cue from Matchbox and Hot
Wheels garages, Bedrock Detroit is looking
into automated parking systems.

"We're going to be doing things like that
because it saves drive aisles and it saves
room for cars with doors opening and
people getting in and out." n
wheels and those are on sidewalks,
how do those fit in areas that don't have
as big a sidewalk as other places do?
So many of these operations are being
driven by technology firms, which are
much more of the ask-forgiveness-later
mentality. I think it's going to be a challenge for a lot of city planners and city
governments." n
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Shift Magazine - October 7, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - October 7, 2019