World 2020: Their Smart Car Parks Itself at the New Town Center

 Mr. and Mrs. B and their best friends are off for a Saturday night on the town – dinner, a professional hockey game, and listening to some “after hours” light jazz. They drive a short eight miles to the renowned Town Center development in an adjacent suburb. Before departing they check on traffic and parking and learn that it’s a busy weekend there, with premium rates for interior parking. Mr. B elects to park at a satellite center nicknamed “Hockeytown”, adjacent to the hockey facility, where the game they’ll be watching later on will be taking place. It’s about a mile away from the actual Town Center, but with adequate parking spaces at very reasonable rates, and a supplemental ITS-mover circulation system providing an easy way to get around. They reserve a space at the ITS-Park structure; their smartcar is guided inside and they get out while their car disappears. They travel up an escalator to find a series of ITS-movers waiting side-by-side to be boarded. They have their selection of two, four or six passenger units. Selecting a four passenger unit which waits with doors open,  they slide inside, and  sit down in comfortable seats facing each other. The unit links up with several others to form a small train and moves onto an elevated guideway, heading out on the less than five minute trip into the New Town Center area. They sit back taking in the striking overview from the elevated guideway.

The ITS-mover is a smartvehicle that’s captive to a guideway, positioned about twenty feet above the Town Center roadways. The guideway is a single lane in each direction and the ITS-movers automatically follow each other at a controlled speed of about 15 to 20 mph.  Since all the units are constrained to the guideway and travel speed is low, the ITS-mover units are exceptionally simple in design and lightweight. They are battery powered, using a small lithium based battery which is periodically automatically recharged inside the ITS-Park structure. Their total weight is only about one thousand pounds, being devoid of steering wheel, brake and accelerator pedals, transmission and selector; side airbags, etc. They ride on much smaller than normal wheels. A unique feature of the vehicle is its low profile parking ability. When it goes to park on its floor in the ITS-Park structure it lowers its top, achieving a total height of only three feet. ITS-movers have replaced older automated people-movers because of their lighter weight, lower profiles, and much shorter turn radii, greatly improving the economics of installing guideways for remote parking and area circulation applications.

The B’s party arrives  at the Town Center and are amazed at what a Saturday night beehive of activity it is. They pass through the edge of the mall shopping area and walk several hundred feet, passing  several small shops and restaurants to get to Cheli’s, their dinner destination for the night. When seated, they talk about what remarkable changes have happened to this area. Formerly a regional shopping mall, it has truly become the Center of activity for this suburb. The shopping mall used to be surrounded by one and one-half million square feet of surface parking lots, parking some 6000 cars. Since the advent of smartcars and ITS-Parks, all of the parking has been redistributed into ITS-Park structures around the perimeter. Each ITS-Park holds 5000 or more smartcars of different sizes. One ITS-Park has two floors underground, freeing up one quarter of the old mall surface parking area for redevelopment. Another ITS-Park has two levels underground and two levels above ground, with shops facing the street, so it isn’t  even recognized as a parking area. The Town Center replacement for the regional mall now contains apartment and condo living areas; office buildings; a movie theater complex and a live theater; the civic center and library. Instead of a bunch of separate “big box” buildings, each with its own separate parking, all buildings now share parking, requiring much less total parking than previously. The overall Town Center layout provides a desirable and efficient walking environment, emphasizing a design philosophy of “park once only”. Each of the Town Center’s six satellite centers has developed its own unique lifestyle quality. And travel back and forth over the several square mile total area does not require anybody to get back into their car for any secondary Town Center travel.

The B’s and friends finish dinner, walk through a nearby green plaza area and watch several busker’s  performances – one doing magic tricks and a second, a ventriloquist, entertaining with some hilarious dummies – before again boarding the ITS-mover back to the ice arena. After the game they expect to once again ride back into the Town Center for a drink and take in a live jazz performance. When they finally return to the satellite ITS-Park after midnight, their smartcar, based on a remote cell phone request, will be waiting for them.