This week at Trafalgar Street car park, we’re going to flex our inner geek muscles and discuss some of the factors that go into the planning and construction of a modern car park. Many car parks in use today are a hangover from the 60s, when concrete was king and designers rarely had the foresight to envisage the sheer weight of traffic our roads and parking facilities would have to accommodate.  As these structures are slowly phased out, a new breed of strategically designed, light and airy car parks are replacing them.

First impression

Modern car park designers have to take into account many complex factors that those of yesteryear did not. For example, with the growth of large-scale shopping and leisure parks, a car park is now the first and last stage in the process of making your customer’s experience a pleasurable and welcoming one. The design has to be inviting, simple to use and navigate, and give them that all-important sense of security. Trafalgar Street embraces this design ethos by providing lovely wide bays for your vehicles, excellent disabled access, and no queuing on exit.

Great design features

To facilitate the above goals, modern car parks try to make the transition from daylight to artificial lighting as seamless as possible, by ensuring that they’re well lit rather than those gloomy rat runs of the past. Light, and plenty of it, goes a long way to providing a feeling of safety for users ─ this is especially important to people using the car parks alone, and at night, and is the reason why Trafalgar Street car park is manned 24/7 and fitted with CCTV.

No great car park design here!

Communication

Driving into a car park requires a heightened sense of alertness, especially if it’s a busy period ─ something that can lead to disorientation for the elderly, nervous or inexperienced driver. Modern car park signs are designed to make the route drivers need to take as obvious as possible to prevent hold-ups and confusion. This extends to pedestrians, with clear and safe directions in and out of the building.

Embracing technology

It’s important for a modern car park to take advantage of technological advances in order to improve all aspects of the customers’ experience. It’s not unusual now for car parks to offer a number of options for payment, such as contactless, credit card, and phone payments. Some of the most advanced designs even feature automatic registration plate readers, which serve as a security measure and means of registering regular customers.

Summing up

As you can see, modern car park construction has learnt the lessons from the concrete tomb-like structures of the 60s.  Everything is set-up to make your experience as hassle-free as possible so that you feel comfortable about visiting again. This is exactly how we hope you feel about Trafalgar Street Car Park, where we’ve created a lovely airy space with comfy-sized bays, plenty of light and a sense of safety and security, so that you know we’ll take extra special care of you and your vehicle every time you visit us.