Recently, Minister of National Development Khaw Boon Wan spoke of his interest in implementing mechanised parking systems on his Housing Matters blog.
(In land-scarce Singapore, mechanised parking systems are growing to be a more viable choice than creating and expanding on car parks. Image courtesy of Thinkstock.)
The December 30 blog post revealed that the Housing Board (HDB) was studying the feasibility of such parking systems to deal with the growing parking crunch problem in land-scarce Singapore.
Now, MP Lee Bee Wah, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for National Development announced that pilot tests of such systems are likely to be carried out in older HDB estates facing space constraints. However, she added that no specific locations have been identified yet.
Speaking to The Straits Times, the minister said that the Ministry of National Development (MND) would first work with the GPC to assess the system’s suitability and gather feedback. Currently, mechanised car parks in Singapore are mostly found in commercial buildings like hospitals and condominiums.
The parking wars problem is especially prominent in older estates. Back when these residential areas were constructed, a lower percentage of residents were car owners and fewer parking lots were planned as a result. Such estates now have limited spaces to build on existing car parks or construct new ones because of the build-up of amenities and facilities.
Addressing concerns of the suitability of such systems in residential districts, Lee said, “Residents worry about reliability and the cost being passed back to them. It looks like it costs more, but as technology advances, and land becomes scarce, at one point it could become a viable solution.”
She also acknowledged other potential problems regarding reliability and the time needed for residents to retrieve their cars, stressing that for older estates that have who have no other solutions to ease the parking problem, mechanised parking is a definite option.
According to division manager at MHE-Demag Jeffrey Tan, the mechanised system is able to park 12-15 cars for every 10 cars parked in a normal car park. His firm supplies such automated parking systems as the fully automated M-Park@Club Street.
However, Tan revealed that in its four years of operation, the system has broken down about three times a month. Also, the waiting time for retrieval can also stretch from less than an hour to three hours—a pattern he attributed to factors like mechanical faults of moving parts, as well as a driver not correctly positioning his car.
To park a car with this system, a driver needs to drive his car into a car-lift and park it in the right position, pull the handbrake and key in a PIN. The system will automatically transport and park the vehicle.
“Educating and familiarising the users is a key factor in ensuring it runs smoothly. Once that's done, the incident rates will go down,” said Tan to The Straits Times. It takes an average time of four minutes for a driver to retrieve his car.
The next issue then is the opinion of the public. Lee said that the decision making for mechanised parking would not be similar to that of HDB lift upgrading. The Straits Times quoted her saying, “I would think solving the problems faced by residents is on a case-by-case basis. It doesn't mean residents go and vote to have a mechanised car park system or not. Where there is a need, and there is no other cheaper option, then we would put in the mechanised parking system, should we find it suitable.”
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Related Categories: HDB and Public Housing, HDB
Tags: Car park, car parks, Government Parliamentary Committee, GPC, HDB, HDB estates, Housing Development Board, Khaw Boon Wan, Lee Bee Wah, limited land, mechanised parking systems, Ministry of National Development, MND, older estates, parking
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