Newsletter Archive
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Will driverless cars survive the test?
On 8th November, media and key industry personnel were exposed to the first demonstration of driverless cars in Adelaide. The SMH reported a ride in a driverless car was seamless. The feeling was the same – smooth, safe and structured. According to the reporter Adam Carey, the car cruised leisurely along the highway at […]
Design & fashion make their way to the car park
Ask anyone about the definition of a car park, and you will instantly hear words such as: congestion, nightmare, traffic, expensive, hard to use or perhaps “I can never find my car”. But has anyone ever responded with “they are the best place to hold a fashion show”? Perhaps not. Earlier this year the British […]
Adelaide reinvents itself as a vibrant new city with less cars and more people
Placemaking plays a major role in the reinvention of Adelaide and has been the force behind Adelaide stepping into the world arena. The city is now becoming daring and exciting, according to AdelaideNow. It is receiving international recognition due to its recent transformation through a dedicated program of infrastructure and redevelopment. Adelaide City Council’s […]
Safety Trucks Hit the Road in Argentina
Argentina has one of the highest car accident rates in the world (alertdriving.com), claiming over 20 lives a day. Most of these accidents involve cars passing trucks on two-lane roads, as reported in businessinsider.com.au. To help combat this problem Samsung have released a prototype for a Safety Truck, which could potentially make driving a lot […]
Driverless Cars – Google’s vision for road safety
The Globe and Mail (Vancouver) reports on a recent TED Talk regarding Google’s driverless car program. The man behind this program, Chris Urmson (Google’s Director of Self-Driving Cars) declares the technology designed to remove humans from the driver’s seat will be available within the next five years. Urmson remarks, “we’ve made some pretty exciting progress and at […]
Sweden’s Vision Zero – benchmark for road safety
What do Stockholm, Rotterdam and Berlin have in common? They are all involved in Vision Zero, aspiring to road safety at its best. The Vision Zero concept first originated in Sweden in 1997. Swedish parliament adopted it as their official road policy. The central theme for Vision Zero is to reduce all traffic fatalities and severe […]
BMW unveils “predictive parking”
Take the frustration out of finding that elusive parking spot with BMW’s new “predictive parking” feature (iPark), unveiled during the recent Detroit car show. According to Fortune in the US, “drivers waste an average of 55 hours a year looking for parking, costing consumers and local economies nearly $600 million in wasted time and fuel”. Not […]
Barcelona Police first with green ride
Barcelona Police have taken delivery of a new fleet of 30 electrically powered scooters, giving them efficient, zero-emission mobility around the city. Already a leader in sustainable mobility, Barcelona was the perfect partner to showcase this fleet of fully electric scooters, manufactured by BMW. As reported recently on BMW Blog, this is the first fleet […]
Creepy car parks – no thanks!
In terms of parking structures, it is likely that every person who drives will have at least three ready examples of “really bad car parks”, because unfortunately, they are commonplace. Whether they are “bad” in terms of design, signage, ease of use, traffic flow, safety or amenity (sometimes all of the above), these are the […]
Decluttering Confusing Signage
The City of Sydney has been presented with a motion to simplify parking and traffic signage across the city. As reported in The Daily Telegraph, Cr Jenny Green presented the motion asking the Council’s CEO to investigate what other cities and local councils are doing to simplify signage. Mosman Council is undergoing a plan to […]
Wayfinder signs encourage sustainable mobility
In several towns and cities in the UK, wayfinder signs aimed at making it easier for pedestrians to navigate and explore are being installed. The new look signage encourages sustainable mobility by helping residents and tourists to navigate their way around town centres and to local landmarks on foot. The Wayfinder system consists of six-foot […]
London: Cycling now considered mass transport
Transport for London’s new Cycling Design Standards Policy begins with the words “Cycling is now mass transport and must be treated as such”. Councils in London boroughs are now requiring developers to integrate this approach into their development plans. A recent example is the 250 City Road project which was required to include ample parking […]
New York: Parking Grand Central style
So you’re spending a lazy Sunday in New York browsing through the options for an apartment upgrade and you come across 443 Greenwich in Tribeca, New York offering (among the “amenities”) a car park inspired by Grand Central Station complete with valet parking, convenient bike racks and a dedicated entry ramp for cyclists. The following […]
Turning New York City’s parking lots into affordable housing
Photo Credit: Stefan Georgi/Flickr With New York City facing increasing pressure on housing affordability, the NYC based Institute for Public Architecture called for creative ideas and solutions for affordable housing. One of the most intriguing ideas came from fellows of the Institute Sagi Golan, Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich, which targets the abundance of parking […]
Toyota working with the World Business Council for Sustainable Mobility
Photo credit: Volvo Traditionally achieving sustainable mobility in city centres has been the purview of town and urban planners in the employ of local, state and federal governments. However, citizens around the world are becoming more concerned with the environment and mobility. As citizens and governments become more focused on the achievement of sustainable mobility, […]
2014 Australia and New Zealand Green Building Market Report
Photo Credit: Sourceable.net The 2014 Green Building market report for Australia and New Zealand has just been released. Between March and May 2014, 133 developers, architects, builders and subcontractors in Australia and 110 in New Zealand provided feedback on their views and experiences with green building. Findings include: In Australia: 90% of respondents have been […]
Repurposing roads and cycleways for renewable energy
In the Netherlands the first SolaRoad will open this week. The SolaRoad experiment is using a 100 metre stretch of cycleway to test whether solar power generated from these types of roads could “eventually be used for street lighting, traffic systems, electric cars and even households.” With 35,000 kilometres of cycleways and over 18 million […]
Rise of the elevator car park
The evolution and adoption of the automobile as an everyday necessity is one of the most impacting of the 20th Century. In 1886 the ‘modern car’ was developed by Karl Benz and only 22 years later in 1908 the first Model T became available to the mass population. Move ahead only 20 years and the […]
Focus on car park design
A recent architectural competition in the US by Combo Competitions has brought attention back to “parking garages”. Combo’s premise is to introduce an additional element to the competitions it organises (another structure, a new function tied to the main one or something completely different, as long as it adds value to the project). Combo recognised […]
A Parisian car park challenge
The Peninsula Hotel, situated in the heart of Paris was built in 1908, one of its many claims to fame being the site where George Gershwin wrote “An American in Paris” in 1928. It took two years to build and has recently undergone a four year restoration to bring it back to its former glory. […]
Honda’s new safety technology protects pedestrians
Honda has announced a new driver-assist technology which has the capacity to avoid collisions with pedestrians. The new “Honda Sensing” will be available on the Legend in Japan later this year, as reported by Hybrid Cars. The system utilises a millimetre-wave radar in the front grille and a camera mounted inside the windscreen to forecast […]
Mercedes self-driving Future Truck
Self-driving cars have been in the news for some time, but Mercedes Benz has just taken it up a notch with concept designs for an autonomous truck (semi) that aims to revolutionise the transport industry, reports Wired. The focus is on safety and addressing the cause of many trucking accidents by putting computers in control. […]
World’s first 3D printed car
At the International Manufacturing Technology Show 2014 in Chicago last week, Local Motors has unveiled the first 3D printed car, reports SBS. Manufactured in just 44 hours, the “Strati” (Italian for layers) is set to challenge the traditional methods of car manufacturing. The mechanical components – battery, wiring, suspension – are sourced from a variety […]
Adelaide embraces Park(ing) Day 2014
Hats off to the City of Adelaide, putting Australia on the map as one of the southern hemisphere’s most enthusiastic supporters of World Park(ing) Day, set for September 19th. With its origins in 2005 in San Francisco, Park(ing) day is an annual event held on the third Friday of September, which sees parking spaces converted […]
Innovative car park with roof-top sports ground
The latest addition to our list of “Alternative uses for a Car Park” will now include “sporting field”. The University of Colorado in Colorado Springs has recently completed a new car park which doubles as a sports venue, as reported in The Gazette. With its ribbon-cutting ceremony this month, the USD $23M project will simultaneously […]
Car park conversion to luxury apartments
Melbourne developer, Grocon, is breaking down the miserable reputation of the car park with a rather unusual project. The development, known as QV8, is converting part of a car park into luxury apartments, as reported by news.com.au. Located on the top floor of the car park in the QV building on Lonsdale Street, the finished […]
Auto-pilot app for driving in traffic jams
A recently announced app developed by Scania and Volkswagen Group Research purportedly will make you more productive while spending time in traffic jams. In terms of road safety, it is hard to imagine that encouraging (more) people to use devices while driving would be a good thing. Nevertheless, the app has won a prestigious award, the 2014 HMi (Human […]
Dusseldorf airport employs smart valet robot
In a new twist on automatic garaging, Düsseldorf Airport is now offering travellers the latest in valet parking technology, as reported by the Washington Post. A self-driving robotic forklift, named Ray, manages the task with ease, utilising laser navigation and mapping software to gently deliver your car to its parking spot. The agile forklift technology […]
Solar roadways project seeks public support
A highly-awarded project that has consumed the lives of an Idaho couple since 2006 is now seeking public support for the next phase of the journey – working towards the introduction of solar roadways. Scott and Julie Brusaw are wrapping up Phase II of their project –building a prototype parking lot using the solar […]