Rajesh Kabra, a youth leader & a dynamic entrepreneur is a Director at RR Global, an 850+ Million USD diversified group of industries focusing mainly on infrastructure & electrical solutions spread across 85 countries globally. Mr. Kabra is best known for spearheading RR Parkon, India’s largest automated multilevel car parking solutions company. He started his career at a young age with Tyco as a Business Analyst and later moved to BG Group where he was responsible for Strategic Planning. Rajesh joined RR Global in early 2009 when he was only 21 years of age where he took on the responsibility with his team to lead the business at RR Parkon and turned it into a successful venture for the group company.
Global urbanization is one of the biggest growing trends in the 21st century. The continuous rapid growth naturally presents urban sustainability challenges. The major challenges for these growing cities are accommodating the increasing level of vehicles on road competing for parking space. Indian metro cities like Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai have often been featured in the world’s top 10 most congested cities for traffic. An Indian driver spends 20 minutes every day on an average to look for a suitable parking spot (as per a report by IBM), an incalculable loss to national productivity. Today, finding a parking spot is more tedious than driving a car around in the city. This is an alarming issue, especially in metro cities. Due to the shortage of parking space available, drivers are often seen parking on the road and even on pavements. This shrinks the available space and obstructs the free flow of traffic. On an average 40% of the cars are being parked on the roads resulting in traffic congestion. As per a 2018 study by BCG it is estimated that we lose 1.47 lac crore rupees a year to congestion in the four metro cities alone. The construction space in the metros have reduced drastically. With the daily new car registrations of approximately 800 cars in Mumbai and 1500 cars in New Delhi (NCR) the additional daily space required is equivalent of 4 and 7.5 football fields respectively. How do we generate this kind of space? Especially when per capita open spaces in cities like Mumbai are at 1.28 sq. mtr as against the 9 sq. mtr recommended space by WHO.
This situation creates an emergency need for a sustainable parking solution at the earliest. An automated parking system is one of the most efficient ways to deal with this challenge.
Automated multi-level car parking systems are a technically solid choice, offering progressed techniques to park and retrieve cars from the parking facility. Their superior innovation and technology simplifies vehicle parking and retrieval with a strong system of pallets, lifts and signaling devices. A multilevel parking system usually accommodates up to 70 cars in the space of 3. As multiple cars can be parked in the same amount of space as a conventional parking lot, automated parking systems are considered to be used for optimum space utilization. The gradual progression towards these automated systems is not only beneficial for ease of mobility and people but also to promote a sustainable and safe environment while solving the paradoxical challenges of urban living.
An automated parking system stores the similar number of cars small portion of the space needed by a parking ramp or other conventional parking structure. The conventional parking systems with their large, complex buildings often prove to be an expensive affair to maintain and are time-consuming as well. The large parking structures take up a huge space of real estate and green cover in already congested cities. This makes it largely inefficient in terms of mobility and sustainability.
Automated Parking Systems play a significant role in saving green spaces in the city. The city green spaces help improve air quality in the urban environment and also help in improving the surrounding property values. Currently the urban spaces in the country are facing air pollution issues due to which construction is banned by the government in certain cities, Automated Parking Systems are an optimal solution to avoid the environmental hazards caused by conventional parking management.
Studies have shown the slower vehicles go, the greater their emissions of Co2 and other greenhouse gases. Idling vehicles produce significant emissions for no real benefit. The traditional parking spaces encourage these wasteful behaviors as drivers circle slowly to find parking spots to navigate winding parking structures. Automated parking systems are aimed to reduce carbon emissions by 20-30 per cent simultaneously saving the car owners the frustration of finding parking in busy areas.
Automated parking systems can help contribute to the city’s sustainable efforts in reducing significant Co2 emissions. The elimination of driver aisles and ramps gives parking systems a great opportunity to build structures that are way more efficient and accessible than the conventional parking spaces in urban cities. India will soon exhaust opportunities for horizontal developments and a multi-level car parking system might be a necessity. Multiple states and cities in India are opting for smart parking solutions and are making sustainable choices to ensure the city is not congested and is meeting the increasing demand for parking spaces. Multilevel car parking systems are quite popular in developed countries, India too is taking a step in the direction of including smart parking in the development plans as seen in major smart city projects in the country.