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It's quite reasonably priced too (for airport parking), about £80 a week booking for September today. I paid that for short stay parking at Stansted earlier thi

It's quite reasonably priced too (for airport parking), about £80 a week booking for September today. I paid that for short stay parking at Stansted earlier this summer.

sixQuarks 3mo ago
That is pretty good pricing. I’m surprised. I wonder if this is just introductory pricing. It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars.
- michaelt 3mo ago
  > It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars. Assume your car park is a grid of cars, 20 cars wide and 20 cars long, i.e. 400 parking spaces. You make the entire first row drop-off/pick up points. With 20 pick up/drop off points you can have a lot of people dropping off or picking up at the same time. And you know pretty well when people will be picking up their cars, as you know their flight arrival details. Assume your average airport parking customer parks for 5 days, that's 80 arrivals and 80 departures per day. Each of your 20 pick-up/drop-off points only needs to handle 4 pick-ups and 4 drop-offs per day. To me that sounds feasible.
  - sixQuarks 3mo ago
    Yeah, in theory, but this assumes a linear demand curve, whereas there may be periods where lots of people come to park at the same time. Most airport parking lots have thousands of spots so you’d need a lot
    - michaelt 3mo ago
      > there may be periods where lots of people come to park at the same time. At least in my country, airports under-provision infrastructure and ask travellers to arrive 2-3 hours before their flights to make up for it. If a person has to queue for 10 minutes for a drop-off bay to become available, that's just the normal airport experience. > Most airport parking lots have thousands of spots so you’d need a lot My point is: If you've got space for a lot of parked cars, you've got space for a lot of drop-off bays. If you've got space to build a car park with thousands of spaces, you've got space to give it hundreds of pick-up spots.
tehwebguy 3mo ago
Wow, who is subsidizing it?
- throw2ih020 3mo ago
  London Gatwick is outside of London, so I assume land costs are low enough that a multi-story car park isn't too expensive.
  - 0x3f 3mo ago
    Most 'London' airports are outside of London and they still charge a ton for parking. Captive audience. This one is unusually cheap, even for Gatwick.
  - 7952 3mo ago
    Most of the long term parking is surface rather than multi storey.
  - hiitsmyaccount 3mo ago
    [dead]
  - Havoc 3mo ago
    I very much doubt this robot is carting them up an incline to a multi story

It's quite reasonably priced too (for airport parking), about £80 a week booking for September today. I paid that for short stay parking at Stansted earlier this summer.

sixQuarks 3mo ago

That is pretty good pricing. I’m surprised. I wonder if this is just introductory pricing. It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars.

michaelt 3mo ago
> It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars. Assume your car park is a grid of cars, 20 cars wide and 20 cars long, i.e. 400 parking spaces. You make the entire first row drop-off/pick up points. With 20 pick up/drop off points you can have a lot of people dropping off or picking up at the same time. And you know pretty well when people will be picking up their cars, as you know their flight arrival details. Assume your average airport parking customer parks for 5 days, that's 80 arrivals and 80 departures per day. Each of your 20 pick-up/drop-off points only needs to handle 4 pick-ups and 4 drop-offs per day. To me that sounds feasible.
- sixQuarks 3mo ago
  Yeah, in theory, but this assumes a linear demand curve, whereas there may be periods where lots of people come to park at the same time. Most airport parking lots have thousands of spots so you’d need a lot
  - michaelt 3mo ago
    > there may be periods where lots of people come to park at the same time. At least in my country, airports under-provision infrastructure and ask travellers to arrive 2-3 hours before their flights to make up for it. If a person has to queue for 10 minutes for a drop-off bay to become available, that's just the normal airport experience. > Most airport parking lots have thousands of spots so you’d need a lot My point is: If you've got space for a lot of parked cars, you've got space for a lot of drop-off bays. If you've got space to build a car park with thousands of spaces, you've got space to give it hundreds of pick-up spots.

tehwebguy 3mo ago

Wow, who is subsidizing it?

throw2ih020 3mo ago
London Gatwick is outside of London, so I assume land costs are low enough that a multi-story car park isn't too expensive.
- 0x3f 3mo ago
  Most 'London' airports are outside of London and they still charge a ton for parking. Captive audience. This one is unusually cheap, even for Gatwick.
- 7952 3mo ago
  Most of the long term parking is surface rather than multi storey.
- hiitsmyaccount 3mo ago
  [dead]
- Havoc 3mo ago
  I very much doubt this robot is carting them up an incline to a multi story