IndiBlog

Mumbai will become the first city in India to get a fully robotised parking lot next month courtesy Akruti City. The lot has been built on Bhulabhai Desai Road in posh South Mumbai and is aimed at decongesting the busy street. It's a 20 stories lot with slots for about 240 cars. All a driver needs to do is to drive to the check-in point in the parking lot from where a rotating carousel takes charge. A parking ticket is handed out to the driver and a robot with sensors identifies based on size, the slot in which the vehicle can be parked. The entire process takes about 2-3 minutes. This ensures that there are no vacant spaces left in the parking lot which is usually the case when humans park their own cars.

The way to retrieve your car is also rather simple. One needs to place the ticket on the sensor and the car is put back on the carousel to be returned. This cark park will use German technology and software and has cost Akruti Rs 25 crore. This is a public private partnership (PPP) between Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Akruti who won the bid through a tender process. Akruti SkyPark will operate this parking lot on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis for a five year period.

The cost of parking the car will be decided by the BMC. Akruti will get a fixed rental every month and commercial space in the building which can be rented/monetised. So finally Mumbai would be getting a world class parking lot like the ones seen in Japan, US and Dubai.