It is a 3D car sliding puzzle. Anyone who doesn’t have a lot of spatial insight sees what’s going on, but can’t actually follow it fully. Cars sliding to the right, elevators going down, and then another car suddenly sliding from the basement. This sliding puzzle is always right.

However, sometimes just a few shifts are needed to get the perfect fit car out of the system. On average, it will take one to one and a half minutes before you can get to your car, says Rik klein Goldewijk of Car Parkers, who installed the system here in Oostenburg.

Car Free Policy

These parking systems are not new, but are frequently used under the influence of the city’s car-free policy. Street parking spaces are becoming more and more scarce and, where possible, tins should be parked in indoor garages. And because indoor spaces are more expensive than outdoor spaces, the most efficient way to park is increasingly sought after.

In this regard, the parking garage of the apartment complex in Oostenburger Middenstraat, which is centrally located in the completely new residential area with about three thousand people moving at a fast pace, is an ideal place for such a system. Street parking is not possible: only loading and unloading are allowed in designated places, residence permits are not issued. But as it stands: a lot of people still want a car and therefore need a place.

Not 25 but 104 cars

Klein Goldewijk leads the way in the parking garage, which doesn’t necessarily look any different than any other parking garage elsewhere. Variation: When you normally drive your car into a parking space, there is now a sliding gate. And if you look closely: behind this fence there is no place for one car, but two to fit.

There is usually room in such a garage for about 25 cars, Klein Goldwig estimates. “But with a parking system in which you can move cars, there is space for 105 cars. This naturally makes home building more interesting for project developers: they need to reserve less valuable parking space.”

slip places

The garage in Oostenburg is semi-automatic: you drive your car into a parking garage and put it on a sliding panel. With a key or key card, the system is activated and the vehicle often vanishes backwards, and in many cases even down or up. To prevent accidents: the system starts to move only when the gates are closed and there is no one behind.

Fully automatic parking systems can indeed be found in a number of places in Amsterdam. You leave your car in some kind of lift, after which it slides onto the correct rack by the system. The municipality is also trying to achieve something similar in Vijzelgracht, where lift shafts have already been built.

chewing gum machine

According to Klein Goldwig, such systems have become increasingly promising in recent years. “The emotion about parking is changing. In the past, people would often insist on stopping the car themselves, and nowadays it’s OK to leave the car in one place. When they come back, they press the button and the car goes out, like a chewing gum machine.” .

Tim Hoffman is an Austenburg resident and has been using the system for several weeks. At first he was suspicious. “I thought: Isn’t that very disruptive? And: What if everyone wants to leave at the same time? Then if you are unlucky, you have to wait fifteen minutes. But everything is working fine so far. It costs me 240 euros a month, but maybe I will start In future car sharing, I don’t use it much in practice.”

According to Klein Goldewijk, the system can also handle crowds very well. “The 105 places in this garage are actually divided into five independent systems: about twenty places per system. Not many people are expected to want to drive in or out at the same time.”