CURRENT TRENDS IN THE DESIGN OF CAR PARKS - WITH PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON PARKING STALL WIDTHS, LAYOUT, CIRCULATION AND PEDESTRIAN MOVEMENTS

This article discusses some current trends in car park design in the UK, with special reference to parking stall dimensions and layout, pedestrian movements, and circulation design. There appears to be a current trend for car park design briefs to specify parking stalls that are 5.0m long and 2.5m wide, even though most previously built stalls have had slightly smaller dimensions and some are considerably smaller. As most new cars available in the UK now are less than 4.6m long and 2.0m wide, the author thinks that stalls 4.8m long and 2.4m wide would accommodate 95% of cars now on British roads, so that only a few parking stalls need to have the proposed new dimensions. The most usual parking stall angle in the UK is 90 degrees, and aisle widths are usually 6m for one-way flow and 7m for two-way flow. Although angled parking allows easier manoeuvring between aisles and stalls, its disadvantages are probably sufficient to explain its unpopularity in the UK. More and more clients are requesting that more consideration be given to pedestrian movements in car parks, especially in multi-storey car parks. Flat deck parks are more friendly to pedestrians. The Vertical Circulation Module (VCM) layout system, using internal ramps for vehicle's vertical circulation, but having all the advantages of flat deck parking, is becoming very popular.