A multi-storey automatic car park — the first of its kind in the Middle East — was opened recently to the public at Ibn Battuta Gate in Dubai. The hi-tech automated car park is capable of handling 765 vehicles and it is the first of several large-scale robotic car parks being built to address growing parking problems in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With this technology, there is no need to drive around a garage to find a parking space. Drivers simply take their cars to an entry station and leave it to be picked up by the computerized lifts that will safely place it inside the building on a shelving system. The robotic system also addresses the growing parking problem by providing more than twice the number of parking spaces compared with a conventional car park, according to a report published today by the Jeddah-based Arab News. The car park is a key complementary feature of the commercial office complex (phase one) at the new Ibn Battuta Gate mixed-use property. Located next to Ibn Battuta Mall on the Sheikh Zayed highway, the development has 40,000 square meters of office space and residential apartments. Pre-opening performance tests of the system achieved more then 250 parking transactions per hour — faster than regular gated ramp-style car parks can handle.
