danieldwilliam: (economics)
[personal profile] danieldwilliam

I’m fascinated at the moment by two particular technologies and their impacts on the economy and on how we live. 3D Printers and Electric Self-Driving Cars. This post is about a potential second order effect of the widespread adoption of electric self-driving cars; what happens to all the car parks?

There are thousands of car parks in the UK. NCP alone have over 700 with spaces for some 200,000 cars. Most supermarkets have a car park. Most shopping malls have a car park. Factories, out of town offices and retail centres, railway stations, airports and sports grounds have car parks.  With 17 millions cars on Britain’s roads they have to be parked somewhere. In fact, they have to be parked in more than one place; near where we live and near where we are going to visit.

Self-driving cars mean fewer car parks.  Firstly, I think there will be fewer cars.  I think self-driving cars in cities will function more like taxis or car clubs than privately owned vehicles. (1)  With no driver to pay it makes more sense for more people to rent a car for a trip or by the hour than to own one out right.  So the absolute number of cars probably falls. These are cars that don’t have to be parked anywhere.  Secondly, as people’s usage of the car changes they need to be parked near destinations less often.

As an example I offer up a trip to the supermarket. Currently a trip to the supermarke involves driving to the supermarket, parking the car in the car park for an hour of so, and then driving the same vehicle home. If cars operate more like taxis there’s no need to park the car at the supermarket. You take one self-driving car to the supermarket. (2)  Do your shopping. Take a second, different self-driving car home. Or take the car that dropped you off once it has finished its next job. In the hour you are inside the self-driving car you came in could complete 4 return journey of 2 miles. (3)

Now, you may think “I don’t want to take a taxi to Sainsbury’s.”  All well and good but the land that Sainsbury’s lets you park on is worth cash money to Sainsbury’s. Given a choice between having you park there and having you take a self-driving car Sainsbury’s will want you to take the self-driving car. They would rather operate a taxi rank at the front of their building and sell the land.

With fewer cars needing to be parked less often there appears to be a long term over supply of car parking spaces. There are already just about enough car parking spaces in domestic streets and garages to house all the cars we own. If we’re not parking when we go shopping do we need all those car parks.

I’m assuming that the car parking spaces to be liquidated are those which are a) most easy to sell b) those furthest from where the car is going to start its duties in the morning. So the large car parks of out of town retailers will be those that are liquidated.

So what happens to the land?

Presumably the land holders will sell it for the best price they can get for it. It’s worth less and less to them as a car park.

So a stream of realatively easy to redevelop brown field sites become available for housing.

Two follow up questions occur to me.

What happens to out of town or suburban shopping centres when the value of the subsidised parking they offer to their customers is reduced because customers don’t need to park to shop any more?

What happens to council income from charging for car parking?

(1) and I think the cost structure looks something like 31 pence per mile for a standard drive yourself car, 11-18 pence per mile for a self-driving car and £2-3 per mile for a driven taxi cab. I think self-driving cars are half to 1/3rd the cost of owning and driving yourself and tens of times cheaper than a traditional taxi.

(2) You might of course walk to the supermarket and then ride in a self-driving car home.

(3) At 20 mph urban driving speed 4 return journeys of 2 miles is 2*2*4 = 16 miles plus loading and unloading time. At a charge of 25 pence per mile this would yield revenue of £4, and a profit of about £1. £1 more than the car would generate sitting in Sainsbury’s car park.

Date: 2012-07-06 05:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rosathome.livejournal.com
I am unconvinced. The layout of out of town shopping malls/supermarkets often has the car park in the middle. That would be completely unsuitable for housing development. In some places, maybe, but I think in lots of places it's more likely to end up as commercial or retail space.

Date: 2012-07-09 11:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] danieldwilliam.livejournal.com
Oh, you’re dead right – not all of the car parks are going to be turned into housing.

I think it depends very much on the specifics of the site.

Thinking about the shopping precinct car parks I frequent:

There are two that are in residential areas that would be ideal for housing if not used for a car park. One surrounds a small shopping mall attached to a large Sainsbury’s. So ideal is that area that I’m surprised it hasn’t already been sold for housing. You could probably get 400 flats on the car parking area. If I were Sainsbury’s as soon as I didn’t need the car park the attraction of having a few thousands additional customers on my doorstep and being paid for that would make me sell the car park to a house builder in a heartbeat.

The Ikea / Costco car park in Edinburgh is so big that you could build anything you wanted there and it would have plenty of room to be itself. There’s room for a small suburb. There is probably room for a small sports stadium as part of Edinburgh’s 2052 Olympics bid.

Fort Kinnard is laid out in a less suitable way. As you suggest the car parks are a bit too wee and too in the middle to make a great housing development. You might fit in one or two small blocks of flats. You might be better served selling them as a space for another retail unit or using them as 5-aside football pitches or tennis courts.

The car park at Waverley station is difficult to convert into anything I think. If it could be used as railway space I think it would already be so and it’s under the main roof so difficult to build housing. Might make a good office space.

Some of the car parks might not be much use for any building and end up being “gifted” to the community to get them off the books of the owner and turned into parks.

I think there might be an attraction for zoning the areas as housing or offices for town planners as it gives them a second opportunity to create the sort of mixed use areas they should have created in the first place.

The other thing I think will go on is that as the retail units the parking areas are attached to come to the end of their life they get redeveloped without an open or multi-story car park in the plan.

So not all housing but I think a steady stream of brownfield land coming available for uses other than car parking. Which I find pretty exciting.

Profile

danieldwilliam: (Default)
danieldwilliam

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18 192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 8th, 2025 11:48 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios