Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa inaugurated the city’s first automated multilevel parking lot on 15th September on Wallace Garden, near Greams Road. This parking lot is situated near Apollo Hospitals.
According to Corporation officials, the parking lot is an instance of private-public partnership. The 43 crore project was completed by a consortium of Apollo Hospitals and Marg Limited on a design, build, operate, and transfer basis.
The automated parking lot is a seven-storied structure that accommodates 249 cars and 230 motorcycles. This new facility should mitigate the parking woes in the busy Greams Road to a large extent with public patronage besides improve Chennai’s image. Every modern city in the world has automated parking lots.
“We have parking machines that accept coins or a parking card. It generates a printout and that must be displayed on the steering wheel or the wiper otherwise that car would be booked and even towed away. Parking fines are heavy in UAE,” Reminisces Mr. Joseph from his Dubai days.
Chennai has a long way before it catches up with cities like Dubai or Singapore as most of the parking is now done manually. Parking is heavy during weekends at Elliot’s beach and you find so many offering parking tickets and most don’t even seem authorized! There is confusion in the rates and no system to keep tab of the parking hours. But with the launch of this automated parking system (APS) Chennai gets hi tech in one stroke.
According to wikipedia, an automated parking system (APS) is a mechanical system that minimizes the area and/or volume required for parking. Like a multi-story parking garage, the vehicles are parked on multiple levels stacked vertically to maximize the number of parking spaces while minimizing land usage.
The Chennai Corporation has fixed the parking fee at Rs.20 for cars for the first hour of parking, Rs.30 for two hours, Rs.40 for three hours, and so on.
Similarly, two-wheeler parking would cost Rs.5 for the first hour, Rs.10 for two hours, and so on.
The monthly parking fee has been fixed at Rs.1,500 for cars and Rs.500 for motorcycles.. It is expected that the new facility would be the beginning of streamlining parking in other parts of the city which has a vehicular population of over 40 lacs. The Corporation is exploring such a facility in Anna Salai, T Nagar, Purasawalkam, Vadapalani, Anna Nagar and Mylapore. Long overdue and high time is a majority view.
