Dear Mr Bartlett

Could you explain that I have to understand of a car park assessment form?

Thank you for your assistance in advance.

Gudrun Smith

Hallo Gudrun,

Good question. I understand a a car park assessment form as a list of items (and sub-items) used to check if a car park is well designed and fit for purpose. By adding points to the items, the form could be used to compare or rank several car parks. It could also be used to make sure designers cover all the right points. For existing car parks it can be used to see where the facility is weak. For planned car parks it could be used to compare alternative designs.

I suppose a car park assessment form would be the same as a "car park designers' check list.

From my background I started with the idea that the geometrics and layouts of car parks are not always adequate. But with your technical background, you might say that there are other aspects which would need to be covered as well.

Regards

Thank you Robert for your answer. I think it is important to have a look at the technical and architectural side too. Have you include savety questions? Have you got questions concerning the width of car spaces included? As in western societies people get older I think larger parking spaces are helpful for older people to get in and out of cars.

I am sorry I cannot provide any literature as I am not directly working in that field. May I correct you that I am not working in a technical area. I am a psychologist and working in Traffic Psychology, but in a field where we deal with the behaviour of people, e.g. drivers who had drug or alcohol defences.

Gudrun,

Yes, I include technical such as width of spaces. Your point about wider spaces for older people - maybe current guidelines such as those from the FGSV need to be updated!

There are also the questions of architecture (as you say), and 'how safe e.g. women feel in the car park'. These are more subjective than technical and I wonder how they could be "evaluated".

Dear Robert

We see several metrics and features in our car park information applications. Starting from facilities and services provided such as availability of women, family and disabled parking, security (as already mentioned by Gudrun), as well as architectural aspects - especially height / width of entries / exits - to identify limitations, payment services, pre-booking services, LAN or also season ticket availability, parking information services (online availabilities, inhouse direction information services, etc.)

Hallo Kurt,

Where could I find more about your applications please (LAN is something I hadnt thought of).

Hello Robert and Kurt

Are there legal restrictions to be thought of? What about danger concerning fire and other catastrophies?

Hi Mr. Bartlett,

I assume the following task for your Car Park Assessment (CPA):

Dependant on

1. the driver’s current location,

2. the parking cost per time,

3. expected parking time, and

4. (possibly) his target to continue the journey afterwards,

5. ..

the CPs are to offer from priority queue whose entries show the favorite CPs the driver should navigate to from his present volatile location.

Each of these CPs is evaluated with

(a) the probability the CP has free parking lots if the driver will arrive.

(b) the traveling expenses (length / time) necessary to reach the CP from the current location,

(c) the parking charge related to the expected park time,

(d) (possibly) the total traveling expenses (length / time) consisting of

(b) + (c) + (the afford to reach target after parking).

An adequate rating should be introduced to facilitate the choice with respect to the driver’s acuteness (time or cost or both).

Yes, I can help you. I have implemented and tested a very efficient algorithm solving the QSAP and related problems (www.os-consultancy.de ). The corresponding problem modification and solution strategy should be made on the basis of a scientific cooperation.

Please make an offer. Simply include me into your research group!

Much pleasure for this interesting research task.

Peter Richter

Hallo Robert, Gudrun

we (http://www.ilogs.com) provide mobile apps (Apple and Android devices) with parking facility information for operators, driver associations and public agencies. Our back-end service is not yet promoted (http://www.parkinghq.com) but already used as micro-sites in other web-sites.

From my perspective, legal or compliance restrictions are limited (e.g. allowance of video/surveillance recording), allowance of fluid gas vehicles, etc.). Of course security is always an issue. I see local crime statistics (if legally available), as well as visitor comment analysis helpful (visibility, darkness of stairways and corridors, access and security related design (lightning, frequency/size, open architecture/design vs. dark corners) of "sensitive" areas (payment machines/desks) . Also, information regarding availability of local personnel or "alarm" systems (panic buttons) might be a good indicator. - Psychology is an issue here, especially if it comes to security , but also in means of supporting driver's behavior )

We also do some research in the optimization of traffic flow (reducing time to parking) - especially for on-street parking. The idea is to reduce traffic by providing parking information (and also to introduce dynamic pricing) based on the combination of telematics, statistics and swarm algorithmns.

Thanks for all the comments so far - they are valuable and are giving me a lot to think about.

Peter, let me try out the Research Gate "projects" facility. I could invite you (and others interested) to access it and could post updates of my document there, for comments. From your comments it sounds like you are suggesting a real-time valuation of car parks. Perhaps a smart phone app or a GIS-based website? Then it would possibly be linked to a subset of all the topics I have listed so far, with simple graphics rather than text blocks to indicate the value / ranking of each topic.

This sounds like something which Kurt and his organisation might offer. Kurt's "parkinghq" website looks interesting, I want to spend some time exploring it. Kurt's detailed suggestions are useful, and build up on Gudrun's comment regarding "security".

I will build up a list of topics and sub-topics, and a starter layout for an assessment form, and try to post them on RG.

For information, Euro-Parking magazine had an article on the ADAC form in 2010 (quote) : As Europe’s biggest automobile club Germany’s ADAC has successfully committed itself to the functionality, safety and user-friendliness of parking facilities. In its 01/2008 issue EuroParking reported on the 20-year balance sheet of the certification “User-friendly parking garages". (I havent been able to download a copy yet but would upload it when I get one).

1. Location:

- how close to trip destinations, to attractive areas of a city

- how easy accessible from a transit/city through street

- how well signed, maybe ITS showing place availability

- can there be queues blocking exit from the parking

- manouvers needed to enter and exit

2. Paking

- dimension of a parking space

- are these dimensions varying, if yes, how good the information is

- places for handicapped

- skills required to enter and exit a parking space

- ITS guiding to a free space

3. Price

4. Restrictions (LPG, other)

5. pedestrian accesability

- elevators

- distance from parking space to elevator, distance from elevator to interesting places in the area

- need to use stairs

Best regards

Jeremi, thanks for your suggestions. I reviewed the (extended) ADAC list of questions to check that your points are included. You bring up another point, how the car park fits into the surrounding area (e.g. distance to ... interesting places in the area. Maybe there are then three types of car park assessment

1. dynamic assessment (with the sort of questions Peter Richter raises)

2. physical assessment (dimensions of spaces, safety / security)

3. locational assessment (relationship of car park to the surrounding area / potential destinations)

- ?