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pontus 1 hours ago [-]
So I'll have to park my car in a garage first, then take a bus to the terminal just so that a robot can move my car from the place where I parked it to a different place? I was hoping it'd be something where I'd pull up to the curb, grab my bags and head in while the robot parked the car for me but apparently I'll still have to take a bus to the terminal?
simonklee 1 hours ago [-]
Exactly, i think this product is solving an airport problem and not a user problem. Whenever i park at an airport i always look for the shortest distance to terminal / price, then chose an option that lands within an acceptable range. Unless i'm way for very long shuttle-bus isn't really on the table.
varispeed 4 minutes ago [-]
I look for most spacious parking place with wide approach lanes, then shortest distance. Some car parks at the airports are just ridiculous. So narrow you can't exit the car.
amelius 1 hours ago [-]
It's still an impressive engineering feat, and (probably, given recent AI advances) an incredible time to market. I wonder when they started working on this, how big their company is, how much training data they put into it, etc.
What is the name of the company that built this?
semiquaver 27 minutes ago [-]
> (probably, given recent AI advances) an incredible time to market
There’s nothing whatsoever to indicate that this has anything at all to do with LLMs.
I parked in a robotic parking garage in Denmark ten years ago. This isn't really new tech, though the implementation sounds a bit different.
mschuster91 58 minutes ago [-]
> how much training data they put into it
This kind of stuff has been the norm literally for decades in any major harbor. No AI BS needed.
wat10000 53 minutes ago [-]
Isn't this just automated valet parking? Valet parking allows more efficient use of space, which makes it cheaper in places where space is at a premium. Automating it would change that tradeoff in a way that benefits the customer.
bravoetch 20 minutes ago [-]
It's missing the value-add of valet parking - being able to pull up at the front door and walk away from your car. Without that, this is not valet anything. You still park then shuttle to the airport so there's zero benefit to the end user.
mattlutze 21 minutes ago [-]
Think of it as picking the parking garage or lot you like, but skipping the hunt for an open spot.
As these things go, if the service provider is able to make step one work and the airport continues the partnership, an eventual step would indeed be coming closer to or at the terminal, and the robot scooters (sounds a little like scaled-up warehouse robots) would move the car to storage.
have_faith 1 hours ago [-]
Article says one of the terminals is within walking distance
IshKebab 22 minutes ago [-]
Anything is within walking distance if you're willing to walk...
Turn on satellite view and you can see it is on the edge of the long stay parking. I dunno if you're realistically going to save a lot of time unless your parking space is right at the back of the long stay car park. Worth it if it's free! I assume it's overpriced though.
kkotak 13 minutes ago [-]
From the map. It looks like the train is closer to the terminal :)
the__alchemist 15 minutes ago [-]
I will give you a reason why this might be useful. Not at Gatwick. (I always took the train when I lived in that area and usually ended up at Heathrow or Stanstead anyway). But at Raleigh NC for example, you have to go up 5 levels to find a spot, (I have never seen an open spot on levels 1-4) and spend about 10 minutes or more finding a spot after that, then walking from your spot to the elevator, then back out. Or sometimes the lot is filled up, and you have to drive to a lot far away, then spend even longer finding a spot that will be at the far end of the lot, then walking a good distance to the bus terminal.
That's if you know the system, and are aware that you won't find spots on the lower levels, and that the "x spots open" indicators are lying. If you're new, you can spend 30+ minutes on a goose chase, miss your flight etc.
This solves that problem; not the bus one. (If the drop-off location is easy to access; if not, then it's pointless)
32 minutes ago [-]
pkulak 6 minutes ago [-]
I guess we can add this to the ever-growing list of extremely expensive, complicated, inefficient and convoluted solutions to problems that end with the final specification: "but it can't be a train".
ajay-b 40 minutes ago [-]
"Unlike traditional valet parking, passengers retain possession of their keys throughout their trip."
"If passengers accidentally leave an essential item in the vehicle after drop-off, on-site staff will be available to retrieve emergency items."
But.. how would they get that emergency item if they don't have the keys?
beejiu 23 minutes ago [-]
You give them the keys, then they go to the site to collect your item.
bravoetch 19 minutes ago [-]
They can turn your alarm off while they're fetching your pills.
mbreese 10 minutes ago [-]
I can remote lock/unlock my car from an app, so I’m guessing this is what they are thinking about.
cortesoft 29 minutes ago [-]
First thing I thought, too. Seems like mutually exclusive features.
djhworld 1 hours ago [-]
I always wonder with solutions like these how stuff like alarm systems on the car cope with the car being lifted, the vibrations encountered as its being towed.
Unless they tell you to switch the alarm system off I guess.
0x3f 1 hours ago [-]
I don't think car alarms detect these kinds of vibrations. It's specifically tilt and more impactful stuff. Certainly, the alarm is never going off when I get my car back via the lifts that I've used. It's probably too smooth.
walrus01 26 minutes ago [-]
Car alarms go off all the time on ferries from cars that really don't like being locked and moved.
0x3f 22 minutes ago [-]
Ferries tilt and jolt in a way that predictable-path car lifts don't.
papercrane 1 hours ago [-]
The problem will be aftermarket car alarms. There used to be a car that parked on the street near my apartment that would go off ever time a bus went by it.
PaulRobinson 2 hours ago [-]
As a general rule, you should take the train to Gatwick if you can, but this is reasonably priced and next time I'm flying from Gatwick I'll probably drive and do this - the train route for me is a bit fiddly, and the worst bit of any London airport for a local is long-stay parking. I'm much closer to Heathrow but the flights from LGW are so much cheaper, it more than covers two weeks of parking at this price.
artisinal 16 minutes ago [-]
Will probably not be long until a YouTuber tries to hide in their car while it gets picked up. Would make for a fun video.
Tom Scott perhaps? Though he will likely get full access to the system.
walthamstow 2 hours ago [-]
It's quite reasonably priced too (for airport parking), about £80 a week booking for September today. I paid that for short stay parking at Stansted earlier this summer.
tehwebguy 2 hours ago [-]
Wow, who is subsidizing it?
throw2ih020 1 hours ago [-]
London Gatwick is outside of London, so I assume land costs are low enough that a multi-story car park isn't too expensive.
7952 51 minutes ago [-]
Most of the long term parking is surface rather than multi storey.
0x3f 1 hours ago [-]
Most 'London' airports are outside of London and they still charge a ton for parking. Captive audience. This one is unusually cheap, even for Gatwick.
sixQuarks 2 hours ago [-]
That is pretty good pricing. I’m surprised. I wonder if this is just introductory pricing. It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars.
michaelt 13 minutes ago [-]
> It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars.
Assume your car park is a grid of cars, 20 cars wide and 20 cars long, i.e. 400 parking spaces.
You make the entire first row drop-off/pick up points. With 20 pick up/drop off points you can have a lot of people dropping off or picking up at the same time. And you know pretty well when people will be picking up their cars, as you know their flight arrival details.
Assume your average airport parking customer parks for 5 days, that's 80 arrivals and 80 departures per day. Each of your 20 pick-up/drop-off points only needs to handle 4 pick-ups and 4 drop-offs per day. To me that sounds feasible.
matthewpick 40 minutes ago [-]
You could pack the cars so close together that no one could get into them. Could be seen as a bit of a theft deterrent, although I’m sure the car park itself is pretty secure.
I'd be curious how it handles someone parking poorly in that bay e.g. diagonally. Presumably those lines serve as a parking guide and the door won't close unless you park correctly.
39 minutes ago [-]
throw2ih020 1 hours ago [-]
The local car wash has lights that help you park the car pretty precisely under the wash robot. No rails or anything, you park right underneath the robot and it moves around and over the car. The robot doesn't start until you are in position.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
IMO this would be a terrible idea to let the robots park cars in the same car park as humans. They most likely have a dedicated car park for this where ever car is parked by a robot.
The article says:
"A Stanley Robotics autonomous parking robot then slides underneath the vehicle, lifts it by its tyres and transports it to a secure storage area."
Which seems to suggest this.
wildzzz 2 hours ago [-]
It sounds like the actual lot will be robots only as it mentions parking cars closer together to maximize capacity.
antihero 1 hours ago [-]
I think the OP was talking about humans parking weirdly in the garage the robot picks them up from, not the car park itself—the car park itself is robot only (so they can jam cars together).
cespare 2 hours ago [-]
The parent is wondering about parking in the bay, before the robot picks it up.
Elhana 1 hours ago [-]
Robot = some 3rd world country guy driving in remotely
varispeed 6 minutes ago [-]
I heard horror stories, where "secure storage area" was actually a field without any security. Not saying this is the case here, but one must be mad to give a car like that without knowing exact location it is going.
It's one of the things where I can't see what is there robot's role here.
reenorap 32 minutes ago [-]
The cookie screen for this web site is the most deceitful I’ve come across in a long time. How do I report this?
inigyou 43 minutes ago [-]
There are systems where you park your car on a moving platform and the whole platform slots into an underground warehouse. That seems simpler and safer.
flipbrad 1 hours ago [-]
I wonder what the failure mode for something like this is (e.g. in bad weather, after a power cut, a car catches fire, etc). Nobody in the country with keys, cars parked so close together you probably couldn't get in anyway... could be interesting!
mschuster91 56 minutes ago [-]
> a car catches fire
That's a solved problem, drench the car in copious amounts of water and flush all oxygen with high pressure CO2 tanks.
SoftTalker 28 minutes ago [-]
BEV thermal runaway fires are certainly not a solved problem. I'm not sure they are as common as some critics suggest, but they are difficult when they happen.
embedding-shape 1 hours ago [-]
> The service must be booked in advance. Same-day drive-up parking is not available.
Interesting, I wonder if this is just a "Like to be able to see availability and cross-reference data to set individual pricing" or if it's because of a technical limitation, and if so, what could that possibly be?
dlopes7 38 minutes ago [-]
Well if there are 100 cars waiting in line for the little garage to be available it defeats the purpose
beardyw 2 hours ago [-]
I remember parking in central London where you left your car in a single space inside a building and it would whisk it up onto some unseen location. I think that was under human control but maybe it will make a comeback with automation.
krisoft 18 minutes ago [-]
There are some horror stories when those kind of systems break down.
It is because these kind of systems are complicated bespoke automation. When it breaks down it costs a fortune to fix it. And what can happen is that different parties (operators vs manufacture vs maintainer) gets into a contract dispute to see who is liable to pay to get it fixed. Which as you can guess can take years to play out. Meanwhile your vehicle is stuck and nobody who could is interested in spending a penny on getting it out.
In contrast to that this project is better in two ways. There are multiple robots. (or at least there really should be) So if one breaks down the other robots can still retrieve cars (albeit of course with reduced throughput). And because the storage is just a flat parking lot if all the robots give up the ghost at the same time humans can drive out the cars from the edges of the storage rows.
0x3f 1 hours ago [-]
Where was this? I've only seen it in London at very high end residential places. Even then it's rare. Most privately-owned public car parks in London are dilapidated and full of thieves, but still command premium pricing. It would surprise me if one bothered to build the infra for this.
ryanmcbride 1 hours ago [-]
Wow finally something capable of parking cars! I'm sure it'll be so much better and cheaper than just paying valets to do it too!
pj_mukh 39 minutes ago [-]
Great, now let's (gradually) get rid of all surface parking lots and build hyper-optimized multi-floor parking setups not made for human driving. A sort of Ocado Grocery Warehouse [1] for cars.
As always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.
trebligdivad 2 hours ago [-]
I wonder what their secure parking area looks like.
krisoft 1 hours ago [-]
A fenced off flat parking lot with a few cameras here and there. Not sure what you expect.
trebligdivad 59 minutes ago [-]
Well that's why I ask - a lot of 'secure' airport parking suffers from people stealing from it.
jq-r 47 minutes ago [-]
Honest question, what there is to steal from a car what was left on the parking lot? Especially on an airport where I assume everyone flies off with their luggage and leave nothing or nothing of value behind.
trebligdivad 32 minutes ago [-]
The car.
chedabob 10 minutes ago [-]
I agree with you, but given that a lot of car theft is now done by exploiting the keyless entry system, it feels like there'd be easier targets.
What is the name of the company that built this?
Edit: seems like they got bought out in 2024 by HL Robotics: https://en.hlrobotics.co.kr/
This kind of stuff has been the norm literally for decades in any major harbor. No AI BS needed.
As these things go, if the service provider is able to make step one work and the airport continues the partnership, an eventual step would indeed be coming closer to or at the terminal, and the robot scooters (sounds a little like scaled-up warehouse robots) would move the car to storage.
Anyway here's where it is:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/YZKPXp7LSjc5jPot5
Turn on satellite view and you can see it is on the edge of the long stay parking. I dunno if you're realistically going to save a lot of time unless your parking space is right at the back of the long stay car park. Worth it if it's free! I assume it's overpriced though.
That's if you know the system, and are aware that you won't find spots on the lower levels, and that the "x spots open" indicators are lying. If you're new, you can spend 30+ minutes on a goose chase, miss your flight etc.
This solves that problem; not the bus one. (If the drop-off location is easy to access; if not, then it's pointless)
"If passengers accidentally leave an essential item in the vehicle after drop-off, on-site staff will be available to retrieve emergency items."
But.. how would they get that emergency item if they don't have the keys?
Unless they tell you to switch the alarm system off I guess.
Tom Scott perhaps? Though he will likely get full access to the system.
Assume your car park is a grid of cars, 20 cars wide and 20 cars long, i.e. 400 parking spaces.
You make the entire first row drop-off/pick up points. With 20 pick up/drop off points you can have a lot of people dropping off or picking up at the same time. And you know pretty well when people will be picking up their cars, as you know their flight arrival details.
Assume your average airport parking customer parks for 5 days, that's 80 arrivals and 80 departures per day. Each of your 20 pick-up/drop-off points only needs to handle 4 pick-ups and 4 drop-offs per day. To me that sounds feasible.
As long as you don't want to use the toilet.
The article says:
"A Stanley Robotics autonomous parking robot then slides underneath the vehicle, lifts it by its tyres and transports it to a secure storage area."
Which seems to suggest this.
It's one of the things where I can't see what is there robot's role here.
That's a solved problem, drench the car in copious amounts of water and flush all oxygen with high pressure CO2 tanks.
Interesting, I wonder if this is just a "Like to be able to see availability and cross-reference data to set individual pricing" or if it's because of a technical limitation, and if so, what could that possibly be?
For example this one is about a van which got stuck in one for two years: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx207jwknp5o
Or there was one in Sweden which trapped cars for 2 months: https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/fnurret-pa-psnurran--m-vill-se-... (sorry, could only find a swedish source)
It is because these kind of systems are complicated bespoke automation. When it breaks down it costs a fortune to fix it. And what can happen is that different parties (operators vs manufacture vs maintainer) gets into a contract dispute to see who is liable to pay to get it fixed. Which as you can guess can take years to play out. Meanwhile your vehicle is stuck and nobody who could is interested in spending a penny on getting it out.
In contrast to that this project is better in two ways. There are multiple robots. (or at least there really should be) So if one breaks down the other robots can still retrieve cars (albeit of course with reduced throughput). And because the storage is just a flat parking lot if all the robots give up the ghost at the same time humans can drive out the cars from the edges of the storage rows.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE
As always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.