People will go to extreme lengths to secure car parking spaces in city centres, with some spending tens of thousands of pounds on one of their own.
Now, an American company has found an ingenious way to increase the number of urban parking spaces with a robot valet that parks your car for you.
Unitronics’ robot dolly transports cars from a special bay at the front of the building to the most appropriate space in the car park.
The system then monitors each space to ensure the car park is being used as efficiently as possible.
Unitronics says it provides up to 3 times more spaces than normal car parks of the same size, as it doesn’t require space for the public to walk or drive around.
Because the car is turned off when the driver leaves it in the bay, the system also cuts down on emissions.
When the driver wants to retrieve it again, they can summon it using a ticket or card. It arrives in the bay facing forward, ready to be driven away.
Unitronics has already deployed the horizontal and vertical conveyance devices in apartment blocks across the US, and in a car park in west Hollywood.
The latest development to use the system is an apartment building in New Jersey, where Unitronics say the system has freed up space for more facilities.