Biker Sharath Madhav often stays at motels during his travels and the first thing he looks for is a parking space for his bike. “Most motels don’t have a proper and safe space for parking. In that case, I park my bike inside the room I hire,” he says.
Not just him, but a lot of travellers are particular about parking space, for they can’t afford to put an expensive bike or car in an unsafe situation. While all of us look for the presence of a security guard, light and cleanliness when we choose a parking space, there is more to safety than these basics. Else, how do we explain incidents of thefts, vandalism and accidents in car parks?
A recent post on Facebook by a woman who lost her car tyres at the T3 Park N Fly facility at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, exposes how shoddy the security system is, even in expensive parking spaces.
Poor risk-management system
The issue of safety at parking areas has become more relevant over the years. If the recent massive fires at parking lots in Bengaluru and Chennai in which hundreds of cars were gutted, are any indication, then it is high time we take a serious look at safety measures in these places.
“Given how congested our cities are, parking is not only a big problem but has also become a big business. In Mumbai, private parking lots charge about ₹300 for eight hours, but in terms of safety, many of them may not even meet the bare minimum norms,” says HV Kumar of HiVayKing Club, a network of travellers and bikers. “In India, risk management system of parking spaces is poor. Often, it is about simple logical solutions and even that is not followed.”
In the Bengaluru fire for instance, the dry grass on the ground is said to have caught fire, which aggravated by the wind, spread to all the cars. “The grass should have been mown as a preventive measure and the wind could have been controlled by erecting a temporary wall or divider,” says Kumar. “To contain the fire and mitigate damage, the space should have been equipped with fire fighting measures. All these lapses led to the accident.”
Building norms
The first step towards creating a safe parking space is adhering to building standards and norms. “These pertain to bay sizes, aisle width, ramps, lighting norms, fire fighting equipment, evacuation times etc,” says Surendra Juyal of Secure Parking. “Next comes zoning of the area and segregating different kinds of vehicles and movements such as two-wheelers, four-wheelers, service vehicles and water tankers. This in turn avoids potentially hazardous situations.”
“In buildings, per current practices in India, larger parking layouts are segregated via fire-fighting walls, which stop the fire from spreading. Each zone can be closed off as needed to contain and minimise the damage,” says Surendra.
Design and technology solutions
According to Surendra, safety in a car park is a combination of both technology and effective design. “Providing technology such as access control, automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), with better design, can go a long way in ensuring safety in addition to security measures,” he says. “In terms of design, we at Secure Parking plan for conflict-free traffic circulation in the car park. Good design helps provide safe and efficient space/movement for vehicles.”
“The foremost requirement is having clear access to emergency and fire fighting vehicles within the property,” he says. “If a parking space is compliant with all these aspects, then the site’s resilience to extremities can be improved .”
