London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

Posted by agotterer 1 day ago

Comments

Comment by pontus 1 day ago

So I'll have to park my car in a garage first, then take a bus to the terminal just so that a robot can move my car from the place where I parked it to a different place? I was hoping it'd be something where I'd pull up to the curb, grab my bags and head in while the robot parked the car for me but apparently I'll still have to take a bus to the terminal?

Comment by simonklee 1 day ago

Exactly, i think this product is solving an airport problem and not a user problem. Whenever i park at an airport i always look for the shortest distance to terminal / price, then chose an option that lands within an acceptable range. Unless i'm way for very long shuttle-bus isn't really on the table.

Comment by telesilla 1 day ago

Sometimes airport parking is insanely expensive (cough Schipol), so I'll park further away anyway or park somewhere I can get the train. If this helped lower costs I'd be fine with this but probably they'd keep the high price anyway.

Comment by nextos 1 day ago

Gatwick long-term parking is not expensive if you book in advance. You need to take a slow bus shuttle to the terminal, but it's never more than 15-20 min including waiting time. I've used it a zillion times as I'd rather not give my keys to those meet & greet companies who drive your car 5 miles. It might void insurance and waiting times when you return tend to be over an hour.

Comment by blitzar 1 day ago

I'd rather not give my keys to those meet & greet companies who thrash your car for you while you are on holiday.

https://news.sky.com/story/i-paid-numerous-fines-after-leavi...

Comment by nextos 23 hours ago

Yeah, I heard some horror stories a few years back. Trustpilot and Google reviews had some interesting cases.

Comment by myegorov 1 day ago

Fun fact: you can get to/from Schiphol by bike.

Comment by crote 20 hours ago

Practical fact: Schiphol is built literally on top of one of the busiest train stations in the country.

Virtually all major cities have a direct rail connection to it, with frequencies from 2x / hour all the way up to 10x / hour. No direct connection? There's probably a one-transfer option running 4x / hour.

It's a five-minute walk from the train platform to the check-in desks. It is closer than the taxi stands or the parking shuttle. It is definitely cheaper than them as well. Level boarding is increasingly common, so there's a good chance you can just roll your luggage onto the train. The trains are generally clean and safe, homeless people and drug addicts on the train are incredibly rare.

If you visit The Netherlands, don't bother exploring other forms of transport until you are absolutely certain that rail transport is impossible. You'll just be wasting money and making things needlessly difficult for yourself.

Comment by usrnm 1 day ago

Some time ago I would've considered that a joke, but this year NS has been about as reliable as DB, so I might actually consider that option

Comment by Etheryte 1 day ago

I mean, you can get to and from practically any airport by bike if you're determined enough.

Comment by eptcyka 1 day ago

World of difference between using cycling infrastructure and sharing roads with 2 ton beasts powered by paleo compost.

Comment by skrebbel 1 day ago

Sure but to Schiphol (and any other airport in NL obviously) there's a proper bicycle lane.

Comment by masklinn 4 hours ago

And Schiphol has ov-fiets and bike garages.

Comment by holoduke 23 hours ago

There are bicycle lanes everywhere in Holland. I don't know a single person that bikes to the airport. From Amsterdam its at least 30 minutes by bike from the city center. Actually have no idea where I would park the bike. It's not common and not practical at this point.

Comment by Symbiote 12 hours ago

I've cycled to Copenhagen Airport. A friend who lives about 15 minutes away (by bike) presumably cycles there when she flies for short meetings with just a backpack.

Comment by juleiie 1 day ago

Unless the bike has electric engine and cargo compartment it’s not super viable id say to move all that luggage

Comment by aequitas 1 day ago

Maybe that’s why the “elektrische bakfiets” (electrified cargo bike) is really popular here in the Netherlands. I’ve got one and don’t even live anywhere near an airport, closest one is at least an hour by car.

Comment by juleiie 1 day ago

What about a sudden rainstorm on a bike? Or a heatwave without AC?

The way I see it sure you can go everywhere using a less than ideal transport option and manage if you must. But.. why?

Comment by yurishimo 1 day ago

The Dutch have a saying, “Je bent niet van suiker” which means “You’re not made of sugar.”

Rain here is a fact of life, similar to the UK or Vancouver, Orlando or the Amazon Rainforest. Everyone who uses a bike for transportation here has a good rain jacket. And to put things in perspective, the normal rain seen in the Netherlands is more of a light drizzle and it generally comes in fits and spurts as moist air is pushed inland from the ocean. If you can afford to wait an hour, the rain is probably stopped.

Also, getting to the airport with a bike in the Netherlands is fine! There are nice protected bicycle lanes, a nice parking garage, good connections to neighboring infrastructure and you can always bring your bike down to the train platform if you need to go a bit further. When you live in a country that prioritizes cycling infrastructure, taking a bike is the practical, cheapest, and often fastest way to reach your destination.

Now to end on a point of more agreement, I agree with you that the demonization of AC in much of Europe is silly. Nobody is upset that in Bangkok or Tokyo that every building has AC. For some reason a certain type of European just doesn’t want to adapt and they will fight tooth and nail to prevent others from utilizing their own economic means in order to stay comfortable in their own homes. My home has solar panels and during the summer they produce much more power than I can utilize at one given moment anyway so if I want to run my AC at 400W during the peak heatwave that should be of no concern to anyone.

Comment by annzabelle 21 hours ago

English actually has the exact same saying "You're not made of sugar, you won't melt."

A lot of people in car dependent regions have forgotten that you can dress for the weather, and that people have been traveling in all sorts of weather for hundreds of thousands of years.

Also, I think some of it is that decent parts of North America are vulnerable to heavy thunderstorms with hail and possible tornadoes, which are very different from the drizzle that Vancouver and Seattle get.

Comment by Aaargh20318 1 day ago

Like any Dutch mom would say to their kids complaining about cycling in bad weather: you’re not made of sugar are you? (Meaning: you won’t melt due to a bit of rain, quit being a pussy).

Comment by crote 20 hours ago

What about a unicorn shitting a rainbow onto your head?

The problem with "but sometimes..." arguments is that the "sometimes" rarely happens. For example, at www.hetregentbijnanooit.nl someone tracked how often it rained during their daily commute of 2x 45 minutes of cycling. Over an 11-year period, 90.3% of the commutes were dry - and that number would be even higher for people with a shorter commute, or those willing to wait a few minutes for the current rain squall to pass. Invest $100 in a luxury rain coat and the problem is solved.

Besides, in a country like The Netherlands the car is the less than ideal transport option! It is expensive, you keep getting stuck in traffic, you have to search for an available parking space, you can't park right at the door of your destination, and so on. For intra-city people movement, a bike is almost always the most convenient option.

Does it sometimes suck? Yeah, of course, but it sure beats getting stuck in traffic every single day.

Comment by juleiie 8 hours ago

Well i don’t really care. I can use the superior mode of transport so why i would not?

Humanity invented engine you don’t need to use legs like a peasant. You can enjoy the fruits of civilisation

Comment by masklinn 4 hours ago

You know, you could have saved everybody a lot of time if you'd honestly told everyone "but I don't wanna" from the start.

Comment by juleiie 3 hours ago

I could but it wouldn’t be as entertaining in my opinion as having a prolonged exchange about such interesting problems and approaches to them.

Do we really owe anyone decrease in our comfort? Is there any reason to do so?

It isn’t a trivial question.

I might have crossed the line from thought provoking to offensive but in my defense it is an easy line to cross

Comment by Grombobulous 1 day ago

You’re right, it’s not ideal. That’s why people in the Netherlands invented a special technology to compensate, which they call “clothes.”

Clothes are not really an ideal solution compared to surrounding yourself with a 4,000 pound piece of machinery that costs $50,000, loses half its value in 3 years, and degrades your mental and physical health.

Comment by juleiie 1 day ago

Honestly avoiding people on the street improves my mental and physical health by reducing chronic cortisol. These fuckers stare at you and worse. A day of this and i am an anxious wreck.

It’s better to just get in your tanklet. Your little oasis. Home away from home.

That’s how i move nowadays from most point As to Bs. Music, AC, glasses. Perfect privacy. Calmness. Peace.

Kilograms of metal between you and the vicious, antagonistic reality of 2026 AD

It’s not just a car. It is an armor for the times like these.

Comment by Grombobulous 22 hours ago

lol, I can't tell if your comment is satire. Home of the brave, right? Where people looking at you is considered scary?

I'm a lot more scared of car crashes, since in most years they kill more people in the US than firearms do [1], and that's a pretty morbid statistic considering 58% of firearm deaths are suicides. [2] In other words, all those bullets flying at you as you walk down the street are less than half as deadly as driving in your vehicle.

I would encourage you to look in your local newspaper/news website and see how often someone loses their teenager in a car crash versus how often someone loses their teenager to violence on the street. I didn't lose any classmates to violence, but I lost at least one classmate to a car crash.

Here's another exercise: stand at a sidewalk at a traffic light intersection and count how many people in cars are actively on their phones.

The most statistically dangerous thing that happens to people walking is being hit by cars.

Somehow I doubt the Dutch are staring at each other with violent eyes and wishing they could cower away from the sidewalk into the safety of their RAM 1500 Crew Cabs. I struggle to imagine how that would happen: you can't even stare at people as you ride by them in the bike lanes in the Netherlands, the cyclists are going way too fast for that.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5642886/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7988561/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7670332/

[1] https://everytownresearch.org/graph/gun-death-vs-motor-vehic...

[2] https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/new-report-highlights-us-2...

Comment by annzabelle 21 hours ago

I think a lot of it is that the US doesn't take a paternalistic approach to mental healthcare or addiction treatment, so there are a lot of junkies and people with psychosis out on the streets in many cities. My understanding is that in Europe these people are more likely to be receiving some kind of treatment and be living in supported housing of some kind, whether mandatory or not, where in a lot of the US they are ranting and raving on the streets and on public transit. But, it's their freedom to refuse shelter and to refuse treatment (and our freedom to choose not to fund it).

Comment by 19 hours ago

Comment by DonHopkins 15 hours ago

The therapy that Juleiie needs begins with watching nine minutes of harmonious mixed car, bike, and pedestrian rush hour traffic at the intersection of Korte Prinsengracht and Haarlemmerstraat in Amsterdam.

Unbelievably busy bicycle crossing in Amsterdam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQSwQLDIK8

Watching that video soothes my mind and warms my heart: thousands of people who have not Repo Man-style driven themselves unintelligent and insane manage to negotiate the same shared space simply by looking at one another in the eye, and acknowledging that everyone else exists.

The famous Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman believed drivers become more alert and cautious when there’s more uncertainty on the road.

Want fewer car accidents? Remove traffic signals and road signs:

https://bigthink.com/the-present/want-less-car-accidents-get...

>Hans Monderman believed that societies could make roads safer by making drivers more uncertain, and therefore alert.

>“When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”

>That was the philosophy of Hans Monderman, the Dutch traffic engineer who became famous not for what he added to road design and urban planning, but for what he removed: curbs, traffic signals, signs. He believed drivers become more alert and cautious when there’s more uncertainty on the road.

>“The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there’s a problem with a road, they always try to add something,” Monderman said to Wired. “To my mind, it’s much better to remove things.”

>According to the anthropologist James C. Scott, Monderman began with the observation that:

>when an electrical failure incapacitated traffic lights, the result was improved flow rather than congestion. As an experiment, he replaced the busiest traffic-light intersection in Drachten, handling 22,000 cars a day, with a traffic circle, an extended cycle path, and a pedestrian area. In the two years following . . . the number of accidents plummeted to only two, compared with thirty-six crashes in the four years prior. Traffic moves more briskly through the intersection when all drivers know they must be alert and use their common sense, while backups and the road rage associated with them have virtually disappeared. Monderman likened it to skaters in a crowded ice rink who manage successfully to tailor their movements to those of the other skaters. He also believed that an excess of signage led drivers to take their eyes off the road, and actually contributed to making junctions less safe.

Unexpected interview in Groningen (Homage to Hans Monderman):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQASVz4xun8

>What? You know all about transport in cities and you have never heard of Groningen? Well, check out this an unexpected street interview in Groningen, a slice of life as lived by our old friend and transport innovating colleague Robert Stussi. He has titled it: A Homage to Hans Monderman. Hear, hear!

Hans Monderman: Rethinking the design of streets and public space:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjBGokenEhQ

>An Urban Design London and Urban Design Group Lecture

>Hans Monderman has been one of the most significant influences on the current debate about the design of streets and spaces in the UK. A traffic engineer and road safety specialist from Northern Holland, he is celebrated as the pioneer of shared space as a means to influence speed and driver behaviour.

>Monderman has been the inspiration behind scores of towns and villages which work without road markings, traffic signs, signals, kerbs, barriers and bollards. ‘Most engineers, when faced with a problem, try to add something,’ he says. ‘My instinct has always been to take something away.’

>Following a short introduction by Rob Cowan, Hans explains his approach, work and experiences.

Hans Monderman talking about Shared Space:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2amDl1Hkl0w&list=PL83763C4BA...

Comment by juleiie 22 hours ago

I don’t know why it feels like this but the modern world doesn’t feel like a safe place with sane people around us.

I would rather take my chances on the road than on the sidewalk or on a bus, completely exposed and defenseless. Like a girl from certain bus video.

You mentioned yourself that you can even be hit by a car. Many such cases lately of people driving car into groups of people.

This world is mad and i think you are much crazier than me. It’s one thing to feel it and do something, anything in response. It’s another to pretend like nothing is happening.

Comment by Grombobulous 22 hours ago

I won't literally ask where you live where you feel this way as I don't need you to reveal personal info about yourself, but I truly believe that if you feel this way and you don't live in some kind of extreme outlier crime-laden area, you might want to seriously think about talking to a therapist.

This level of fear you describe is not a healthy or reasonable way to live your life and is not a very typical sentiment. A professional can help you figure out where these feelings are coming from and what you can do to manage them.

Sure, there are crazy and violent people out there, I don't deny that.

I know I was being somewhat of an urbanist zealot in my last comment, but for real...regardless of whether you prefer suburbs and spending more time in your car or the city and spending more time on foot, this isn't a healthy way for you to see the world in either case.

Comment by juleiie 20 hours ago

These feelings are coming from being stared at. I can manage them by staring at people back in not so pleasant ways and having a weapon in a pocket if the staring contest escalates.

Comment by Grombobulous 19 hours ago

Every major city I’ve ever lived in or visited mostly involved people doing the exact opposite of staring because urban culture generally has a “leave everyone else alone and mind your own business” aspect to it.

Because of that observation, I think it would be wise for you to dig deep on whether something about your own perceptions is failing you in this regard. I think there’s a strong likelihood that either something about your physical appearance looks very different, your own behavior is causing staring, or the staring isn’t happening at all in the way you describe.

Unless you just live in a specific place/culture where staring is prevalent.

Comment by juleiie 8 hours ago

It’s not my business to make sure people aren’t staring. It’s your business to keep your eyes where they belong - straight ahead.

Comment by vidarh 6 hours ago

I would urge you to seek help, as this attitude is not exactly indicating sound mental health.

Comment by juleiie 3 hours ago

It sure isn’t. I am an artist really at the core and I need to be little unhinged to create.

Of course I am not saying everyone should be crazy but it is what works for me.

Comment by crote 20 hours ago

How do you know those people aren't staring at you because you started staring at them in an unpleasant way in response to them randomly glancing a look vaguely in your direction?

I don't stare at people. They don't stare at me either. Problem solved?

Comment by juleiie 8 hours ago

I check if people are looking at me. It’s useful and sometimes they do. Then we are locked in staring at each other like two cats.

Comment by DonHopkins 15 hours ago

> staring at people back in not so pleasant ways and having a weapon in a pocket if the staring contest escalates

"Staring at people back in not so pleasant ways" IS escalating. Just like complaining about the traffic while driving means YOU ARE the traffic you're complaining about.

So you're intentionally causing traffic, escalating aggression, and increasing your chances of killing people with both your car and your gun, while also increasing your probability to 35 TIMES MORE LIKELY that you die by suicide by your own gun.

Not a wise strategy for someone who already admits to suffering from mental health problems so bad that you're afraid to look your fellow Americans in the eye. Threatening to murder someone because of a staring contest is totally unhinged, especially with your intentional escalation strategy.

My advice: get a bike and get rid of the gun. Don't just leave it around where children can get ahold of it. Destroy it.

But don't just destroy the gun and lose the car and get a bike: get professional help too. Crazy people murder innocent people with their cars all the time too, like what just happened at Berlin Pride.

Handgun ownership associated with much higher suicide risk:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner...

>Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don't own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don't.

Comment by juleiie 8 hours ago

Nice baseless assumptions based on random chain of comments.

Comment by DonHopkins 15 hours ago

Well maybe if you Americans would stop glorifying Rolling Coal on bicyclists and pedestrians and electric cars, and electing narcissistic leaders who classify bike lanes as "Woke" DEI and are so racist and bigoted that they believe pedestrians and bicyclists and "Woke" and "AntiFa" citizens are radical terrorists who threaten their way of life, you wouldn't be so frightened to walk outside or look anyone in the eye.

Trump Secretary Puts Americans in Danger Over “DEI Bike Lanes”. Sean Duffy has derided bike lanes as too woke, and is now stripping mentions of them from federal websites:

https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/1v4svzl/trump_secr...

ULTIMATE ROLLING COAL ON TESLA COMPILATION | TESLACAM STORIES #98

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgT1Sjo6u34

Cycliq Fly6 CE and Fly12 CE – Coal Rolling in Daytona

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFeBKT8mNXc

Update on the Waller Texas teen who crashed into cyclists while rolling coal on them

https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/1efwnvp/update_on_...

Late 2021 in Waller County Texas, the teenage son of a well connected local family rolled coal on six cyclists and crashed into them causing serious injuries. There was police inaction (looked like a bit of a coverup) and then the DA filed felony charges. Since 2021, pretty much total silence in the news.

A reddit post in May 2023 here asking for information still comes up in a Google search and is one of the most recent, @ u/gmkrikey https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/13u9bxn/what_happe...

Very little information has been put out on this terrible crash since it happened in 2021, but recently I finally found some. And the article seems to show the driver was given little accountability. It's an interesting article, read & update. Including a discussion on the history of corruption in the Waller Texas area.

The Horrific Coal-Rolling Incident that Nearly Killed 6 Cyclists

IN A RURAL COMMUNITY OUTSIDE HOUSTON, A VIOLENT COLLISION SHATTERED LIVES. A TEENAGE BOY WAS CHARGED WITH ASSAULT, BUT WAS JUSTICE SERVED?

Original update, https://www.bicycling.com/news/a60747401/waller-texas-coal-r...

EDIT: added non paywall version, https://archive.ph/3tLtL

Comment by DonHopkins 16 hours ago

Face it, Juleiie:

"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." -Miller, Repo Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwma-xGQa6o

Comment by crote 20 hours ago

> Honestly avoiding people on the street improves my mental and physical health by reducing chronic cortisol. These fuckers stare at you and worse.

... you do realize that you are also "these fuckers", right? It's like complaining about "being stuck in traffic": no, you are the traffic.

The people on the street are just people. They aren't any different from your coworkers, your family members, or the parents of your kid's classmates. If merely being in the presence of other people causes you serious anxiety, you might want to consider asking a medical expert for potential therapy options before it gets even worse and you're left unable to leave the home at all.

Comment by juleiie 8 hours ago

We are totally not the same in ways you could never fully comprehend

Comment by masklinn 1 day ago

Depends how much luggage exactly, but bakfiets and cargo trailers can be pretty roomy. Ebike is always helpful.

And that's before you get into tricycles.

Comment by DonHopkins 15 hours ago

I love seeing the delighted expressions on kids’ and dogs’ faces riding in bakfietsen.

Comment by skrebbel 1 day ago

I've biked to the airport lots of times. It depends on where you're going of but for short-ish trips a backpack is often though. And I did also once bring a suitcase on a (non electric) cargo bike. Worked fine.

Comment by gib444 1 day ago

Great way to save some CO2! It really pays to be conscious about that.

Comment by crusty 20 hours ago

It's solving the 'meatsack labor costs are really cramping my profitability' problem.

It's an inconveniently located valet service. But oh, you keep your keys. So it's really an inconvenient tow-truck valet service - or two guys with fork lifts.

Comment by amelius 1 day ago

It's still an impressive engineering feat, and (probably, given recent AI advances) an incredible time to market. I wonder when they started working on this, how big their company is, how much training data they put into it, etc.

What is the name of the company that built this?

Comment by wildzzz 1 day ago

It's probably got some AI but not the GPU gobbling kind. This is old school robotics using control loops and old AI algorithms. Sensors decide if you've parked correctly in the garage. Robot is dispatched via a queue once you've closed the door. Cameras and sensors guide the dolly into place. Robot follows predetermined route to the parking spot and uses sensors to detect obstructions (people, debris, other robots parking cars). Maybe there's lidar on board. Cameras and encoders guide the car perfectly into the designated spot. Robot whisks off to go charge or grab another car from the queue. It's effectively the same level of intelligence as a Roomba with the mechanics of an electric forklift. It's still cool but the fundamentals were developed 40+ years ago, we've just managed to shrink a lot of the tech down in size and power since then.

Comment by semiquaver 1 day ago

  > (probably, given recent AI advances) an incredible time to market

There’s nothing whatsoever to indicate that this has anything at all to do with LLMs.

Comment by domh 1 day ago

It says Stanley Robotics in the article: https://www.stanley-robotics.com/

Edit: seems like they got bought out in 2024 by HL Robotics: https://en.hlrobotics.co.kr/

Comment by SoftTalker 1 day ago

I parked in a robotic parking garage in Denmark ten years ago. This isn't really new tech, though the implementation sounds a bit different.

Comment by jakzurr 1 day ago

Great, I've been day-dreaming about this for decades, and when it finally happens, I don't notice it. ;p

Comment by bwblabs 1 day ago

2015-06-10 indeed: https://youtu.be/H4jYDfOzrjY

Comment by Nition 1 day ago

Ah, that answers something I was wondering about that the article didn't answer, which is how you can lift a car by its tyres without starting already under the tyre and without friction or forcing them to rotate.

Looks like the answer is (at least for this older system), come in from both sides of the tyre with two separate arms, and have each of those arms have their own little wheels on, so as you move inwards it lifts up the tyre and just rolls your mini wheels a little bit. Clever.

Comment by bwblabs 1 day ago

This is the video of the 11+ year old system installed in Århus Denmark by Lödige Industries from Germany. Lödige Industries more recent solution is actually moving the whole pallet you park on, so you can also plug your car into it: https://youtu.be/-_ZxnDrfwGk?t=46

The system in London Gatwick UK is done by Stanley Robotics from France (which was acquired by HL Robotics from South Korea in 2024), but it could be similar.

Comment by Nition 23 hours ago

Sorry yeah, I understood that they're not the same company or system, but I couldn't think of any way it could be done (aside from, as you say, parking already on it) so it was nice to see at least one solution.

Comment by mschuster91 1 day ago

> how much training data they put into it

This kind of stuff has been the norm literally for decades in any major harbor. No AI BS needed.

Comment by kkrkgbbsvjdlzn 1 day ago

We had AI in the 80/90s, we even had an AI hype in the 80/90s.

Comment by shermantanktop 1 day ago

The things we called AI back then would not get that label today. Maybe “decision tree” or “expert system”? Or simply “algorithm”?

Comment by w4der 1 day ago

And I bet even current LLMs will get relabeled as not-AI once the next best thing comes around in a decade or less.

Comment by wat10000 1 day ago

Isn't this just automated valet parking? Valet parking allows more efficient use of space, which makes it cheaper in places where space is at a premium. Automating it would change that tradeoff in a way that benefits the customer.

Comment by bravoetch 1 day ago

It's missing the value-add of valet parking - being able to pull up at the front door and walk away from your car. Without that, this is not valet anything. You still park then shuttle to the airport so there's zero benefit to the end user.

Comment by myself248 1 day ago

On the other hand, it leaves the car locked the whole time, no valet having your keys, no valet adjusting your seats, etc. Some of us avoid valet for some of these reasons.

If this thing could pick up my car from curbside at arrivals dropoff like a valet, but handle it robotically so there's no valet downside, it would be amazing.

Comment by grogenaut 1 day ago

on the other other hand it randomly pressure points the bottom of your car on points that weren't really meant for it.

agree that this would be way better if you just drove up in a queue and cars were taken away. one imagines the slow moving conveyors at amusement parks to get people closer to the ride's speed, tho given how long people take to park, get, take off the seat belt, find park, shut off the car, check their faces in the mirror, Find their cell, button their jacket, straighten up other stuff, find the rest of their shit, get out of the car, kiss their loved ones for 10 straight minutes, struggle with the tailgate, get their bats out, realize they forgot their phone, and finally head away from their car... probbably wouldn't work.

I see people take 5 minutes to get their car moving or get out at a grocery store. what they're doing I'll never guess. Car isn't even started for 3 minutes. When I first learned to drive my dad's hard and fast rule was to get the A/C running before anything else (other than insuring the car wouldn't move), the windows could be lowered with your other hand as a secondary.

Comment by myself248 22 hours ago

It lifts the tires by scooping them up wheel-dolly style.

Machines precisely like this, but manually piloted, are used in automotive plants themselves to move vehicles that fail end-of-line test, had an assembly mishap affecting the powertrain, or otherwise need to be shuffled around when they're not able to move under their own power. As long as it has tires, it can be moved this way.

Stringo™ and DJ CarCaddy™ are some popular brands, if you want to see more of how this type of lift works.

Comment by grogenaut 15 hours ago

Aah I didn't se that on the video that makes sense..

Comment by clort 1 day ago

it picks it up by the tyres, so no random pressure points

Comment by pbhjpbhj 20 hours ago

Also great for stealing cars, presumably.

Comment by wat10000 1 day ago

In some places, it's no more convenient, and the value-add is just that you can pack cars in tighter. In Manhattan, for example, it's common for valet parking to be cheaper and less convenient.

Comment by varispeed 1 day ago

I look for most spacious parking place with wide approach lanes, then shortest distance. Some car parks at the airports are just ridiculous. So narrow you can't exit the car.

Comment by kkrkgbbsvjdlzn 1 day ago

I you have an extreme size SUV, yes, it should be hard to park. It’s by design.

Comment by close04 1 day ago

I have a small car (regular hatchback) and a lot of the parking spots in the very large airport in my city are just marginally wider than my car. If you can’t get the spot at the end of the row, the only way to park in some of the buildings is to offload all your passengers, hope you find a spot where you can park “right door to right door” next to someone else so you can leave just enough room on the left side to squeeze out.

The parking buildings were built when cars were smaller than small cars today, and as the passenger count increased, so did the need for more spots, in a 0 sum game. They just split the cake in smaller slices.

Comment by varispeed 1 day ago

I don't have a SUV. But why it should be hard? Do you hate people?

Comment by clickety_clack 1 day ago

Implementation is everything. If there’s enough capacity to drive up and drop your car off without queueing, and your car is ready to go as you leave the terminal then it sounds great. If there’s a half hour wait to get into the drop off zone, and another half hour wait after picking up your bags, and a half hour walk to the pickup/dropoff area then I’d prefer a 30 min shuttle.

Comment by ohyayno 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by birdsongs 1 day ago

Do you have any proof of this? The moderators are very transparent here. I'd be absolutely shocked if that's true.

Comment by iamben 1 day ago

I think this is solving the 'airport parking' problem my dad has. He drives to the airport, parks a mile or so away in some field and the company that owns the field drops him off at the terminal. He can leave his car there for the week.

This feels like a clever solution to have some spaces closer to the airport and many spaces further away.

Comment by scoot 1 day ago

That isn't how this works. It doesn't transport your car to a more distant car park - it simply "parks" your car in an available space.

Comment by iamben 22 hours ago

Yes. I read the article. You leave your car in a close and available garage so you don't have to search for a space. The robot takes your car and finds you a parking space to leave it.

What about my comment was wrong? At some point my dad gets to park his car in a garage close to the airport, a robot deals with it. At that point what does it matter if the space is 30 seconds from the garage or 5 miles?

Comment by have_faith 1 day ago

Article says one of the terminals is within walking distance

Comment by IshKebab 1 day ago

Anything is within walking distance if you're willing to walk...

Anyway here's where it is:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/YZKPXp7LSjc5jPot5

Turn on satellite view and you can see it is on the edge of the long stay parking. I dunno if you're realistically going to save a lot of time unless your parking space is right at the back of the long stay car park. Worth it if it's free! I assume it's overpriced though.

Comment by crusty 20 hours ago

I love (/s) that there's a Cafe business that can survive on a singular customer base of people who parked their cars for a long time in one very specific parking lot.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/wL9jK7Pnsc2Ezzp4A

Comment by IshKebab 8 hours ago

That's almost certainly where the shuttle bus goes from, and there are people waiting for the bus.

Comment by kkotak 1 day ago

From the map. It looks like the train is closer to the terminal :)

Comment by arjie 22 hours ago

From London proper, it's best to take the train to the airports. If you're lucky you're flying out of London City Airport, but most of the time I'd go to Gatwick or Heathrow by train and it's a good way to get there.

Comment by IshKebab 1 day ago

Yes if you can get a train into a UK airport that's definitely the way, but even in the train-friendly UK that's often not feasible. For example Bristol airport has no railway. Heathrow is very inaccessible by train from the west. So there are unfortunately still plenty of reasons to drive to UK airports.

Comment by pbhjpbhj 19 hours ago

Bus to Bristol Temple Meads (railway station) used to be pretty good. Bristol now charge cars £8.50 (for 5mins) to use the drop zone. This means lots of cars dangerously trying to set-down/pick up passengers in the busy main roads outside the airport. The government should step in; passengers should have a drop zone they can safely walk into the terminal from.

Comment by IshKebab 8 hours ago

The secret is that you can drop/collect people at the silver parking zone for free, and there's a shuttle to the airport which is quite frequent and short.

But I agree, trying to extract money from people like this is greedy and dangerous.

My experience of the airport flyer has not been at all good.

Comment by kkrkgbbsvjdlzn 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by dom96 1 day ago

Meanwhile their toilets are all completely down because of water supply failures[1]. A sad and funny juxtaposition.

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

Comment by Reason077 1 day ago

Yes, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you can't pull up close to the terminal and leave your car there for the robot to park. But I assume this is just a prototype/trial of the robot tech with a view to expanding it in the future. Presumably they didn't want the risk of broken down (or stuck/confused) parking robots clogging up the busy airport drop off area.

Comment by mattlutze 1 day ago

Think of it as picking the parking garage or lot you like, but skipping the hunt for an open spot.

As these things go, if the service provider is able to make step one work and the airport continues the partnership, an eventual step would indeed be coming closer to or at the terminal, and the robot scooters (sounds a little like scaled-up warehouse robots) would move the car to storage.

Comment by atmosx 1 day ago

Well that’s the design / usability / real needs part. Which is what these projects often miss. I see often tech replacing parts of a workflow but in reality the process / flow remains the same. Now some parts are digital and we call this “progress”. Strictly speaking it’s digitization but not progress.

Comment by ghm2199 1 day ago

Not a problem for me, :) I always take a shuttle or an Uber to the airport from where I parked, which is 10-15 mins away, because parking at the airport(JFK, LaGuardia, Newark at least) is stupid expensive

The article says:

> The facility is within walking distance of the South Terminal, although a free shuttle bus is also available.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by the__alchemist 1 day ago

I will give you a reason why this might be useful. Not at Gatwick. (I always took the train when I lived in that area and usually ended up at Heathrow or Stanstead anyway). But at Raleigh NC for example, you have to go up 5 levels to find a spot, (I have never seen an open spot on levels 1-4) and spend about 10 minutes or more finding a spot after that, then walking from your spot to the elevator, then back out. Or sometimes the lot is filled up, and you have to drive to a lot far away, then spend even longer finding a spot that will be at the far end of the lot, then walking a good distance to the bus terminal.

That's if you know the system, and are aware that you won't find spots on the lower levels, and that the "x spots open" indicators are lying. If you're new, you can spend 30+ minutes on a goose chase, miss your flight etc.

This solves that problem; not the bus one. (If the drop-off location is easy to access; if not, then it's pointless)

Comment by Reason077 1 day ago

> "you won't find spots on the lower levels, ... the "x spots open" indicators are lying"

A simpler and cheaper solution would be to fix those availability signs. Surely this is not a problem that a few cameras and some smart software couldn't solve.

Comment by iamtheworstdev 1 day ago

Atlanta/Hartsfield just opened a new parking deck with those cameras and I bet some fancy as f### AI powered system. 7 level deck, I tried 4 of them before I realized the green/red lights were just randomly switching back in forth, so the total on each floor never reached zero. Fortunately, the top deck was free.

When I got back I walked past the kiosk that said "type in your license plate and locate your car" for those who forgot where they parked, like I did. Typed it in - no car found. (this was a recent trip, out on 07/23 and back on 07/25)

Comment by sarjann 1 day ago

I guess the argument might be that it'll be faster than finding a spot. Slightly minor benefit is you don't need to remember where it's parked.

Comment by INTPenis 1 day ago

It's basically a larger version of P-Snurran they made in Stockholm back in 2023. It was like a CD changer for cars.

Comment by globular-toast 1 day ago

It's more like valet parking except you lock your car and keep your keys. I guess enough people don't trust someone else driving their car.

Comment by mcfedr 1 day ago

especially disappointing as there is valet parking at Gatwick that works exactly like that

Comment by jalada 1 day ago

Simultaneously - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

Comment by kylehotchkiss 1 day ago

It’s exciting to invest in the future and not exciting to invest in infrastructure

Comment by joe463369 1 day ago

Neither VINCI Airports nor Stanley Robotics are responsible for the water infrastructure in South East England.

Comment by longsangstan 1 day ago

I am quite surprised by the amount of negative comments here. My immediate reaction after watching the video is that this is pretty cool and I want to try it, even though I expect issues given that it is the first service of this kind in London.

Comment by Tade0 1 day ago

Personally I wonder why didn't they put several Pater Noster parking machines instead.

Systems with eight slots have decent throughout, the same density as cars parked side-by-side and bumper-to-bumper - even including the space needed to roll out - and are mechanically simple compared to just about anything else in this space.

Comment by forgetfreeman 21 hours ago

Replacing "hand over your keys" with "perform detailed inspection of your vehicle, including undercarriage and suspension for damage before leaving" doesn't sound particularly enticing. Given I'm capable of parking my own vehicle without having an anxiety attack in the process I'm also fairly certain this thing doesn't solve any of my problems. I am likewise surprised that this seemingly pointless, grossly overengineered system that is nakedly hostile to minimum wage tier workers like valet service drivers isn't being warmly received here, but for different reasons.

Comment by PaulRobinson 1 day ago

As a general rule, you should take the train to Gatwick if you can, but this is reasonably priced and next time I'm flying from Gatwick I'll probably drive and do this - the train route for me is a bit fiddly, and the worst bit of any London airport for a local is long-stay parking. I'm much closer to Heathrow but the flights from LGW are so much cheaper, it more than covers two weeks of parking at this price.

Comment by Traster 5 hours ago

Having been to Gatwick plenty of times, the weakness with this vs the already existing valet parking is that the valet parking is just 1 story of the short stay car park.

You just drive up, drop your keys and go, your car is parked in a long line of cars that they can asynchronously drive off to long stay. The key thing is the location - you're a 30 second walk over a bridge into the terminal. Probably a hundred cars can be sitting waiting to be driven off to the long stay at the time, so they can handle the drop off/pick up of many cars at once. Whereas with this solution each "bay" will be occupied for a time while the autonomous robot drives off the previous vehicle, so you either need to over-provision - have many robots servicing a single bay to cope with peak times, or you'll need some local skid buffer.

From a customer point of view. This is on the outskirts of the airport so it's a much longer walk without a covered path (so you'll get wet because at some point it will start raining again in the UK). It's maybe slightly better than long stay, where you do need a bus journey (which tbh isn't that bad). But I'm not sure how much juice is in this application to squeeze.

Comment by peder 3 hours ago

Presumably this robotic valet will shift more towards long-term parking distant from the airport when it's known a customer is not returning. Today that's presumably cost ineffective.

Comment by djhworld 1 day ago

I always wonder with solutions like these how stuff like alarm systems on the car cope with the car being lifted, the vibrations encountered as its being towed.

Unless they tell you to switch the alarm system off I guess.

Comment by fsuts 2 hours ago

Illegally parked Cars are regularly lifted up and put into the back of flatbed lorries or towed away on back two wheels so this is arguably more gentle!

Comment by 0x3f 1 day ago

I don't think car alarms detect these kinds of vibrations. It's specifically tilt and more impactful stuff. Certainly, the alarm is never going off when I get my car back via the lifts that I've used. It's probably too smooth.

Comment by walrus01 1 day ago

Car alarms go off all the time on ferries from cars that really don't like being locked and moved.

Comment by 0x3f 1 day ago

Ferries tilt and jolt in a way that predictable-path car lifts don't.

Comment by kvirani 1 day ago

Yes I see this all the time on BC ferries. Usually an Audi or similar

Comment by papercrane 1 day ago

The problem will be aftermarket car alarms. There used to be a car that parked on the street near my apartment that would go off ever time a bus went by it.

Comment by eliseumds 1 day ago

Some OEM systems are sensitive too. My mother has a Hyundai that triggers the alarm whenever a heavy truck drives by.

Comment by egeozcan 1 day ago

There's even a somewhat famous song about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z-8vy6sPQQ

Comment by Havoc 20 hours ago

Pretty sure the alarm cares more about tilt than vibration - indicates towing

Comment by saghm 1 day ago

I asked this once in the past, but...do car alarms actually stop any actual crime ever? My entire life, every time I've ever heard a car alarm go off, literally everyone around just rolls their eyes and ignores it. If I actually looked up at a car alarm and the person outside the car just said "I'm so sorry! You know how it is", I would probably just nod and move on without really taking the time to figure out if it was really their car (because even if they were breaking in I don't have any desire to risk an altercation with someone doing that, and even if I were inclined to call law enforcement, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't come do anything because some random car's alarm is going off).

I want to be open minded that I'm missing something, but I can't help but feel like car alarms are just security theater with a side of nose pollution.

Comment by ajay-b 1 day ago

"Unlike traditional valet parking, passengers retain possession of their keys throughout their trip."

"If passengers accidentally leave an essential item in the vehicle after drop-off, on-site staff will be available to retrieve emergency items."

But.. how would they get that emergency item if they don't have the keys?

Comment by beejiu 1 day ago

You give them the keys, then they go to the site to collect your item.

Comment by bravoetch 1 day ago

They can turn your alarm off while they're fetching your pills.

Comment by mbreese 1 day ago

I can remote lock/unlock my car from an app, so I’m guessing this is what they are thinking about.

Comment by chrisjj 12 hours ago

Wouldn't that need the parked car to have internet?

Comment by cortesoft 1 day ago

First thing I thought, too. Seems like mutually exclusive features.

Comment by walthamstow 1 day ago

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.

Comment by tehwebguy 1 day ago

Wow, who is subsidizing it?

Comment by throw2ih020 1 day 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.

Comment by 0x3f 1 day 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.

Comment by Havoc 20 hours ago

I very much doubt this robot is carting them up an incline to a multi story

Comment by 7952 1 day ago

Most of the long term parking is surface rather than multi storey.

Comment by hiitsmyaccount 1 day ago

[dead]

Comment by sixQuarks 1 day 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.

Comment by michaelt 1 day 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.

Comment by sixQuarks 1 day 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

Comment by michaelt 22 hours 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.

Comment by rwmj 1 day ago

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

As long as you don't want to use the toilet.

Comment by flkiwi 1 day ago

It's the perfect juxtaposition of stories.

Comment by gib444 1 day ago

Seems it's becoming all too frequent in Kent and Sussex

Comment by ukrulez 1 day ago

More fun to spend millions on AI than fixing literal shit.

Comment by jryle70 1 day ago

Even more fun to bash AI from the comfort of HN without knowing how much AI is being used, or at all, in this case.

Comment by smnscu 1 day ago

I'd be curious how it handles someone parking poorly in that bay e.g. diagonally. Presumably those lines serve as a parking guide and the door won't close unless you park correctly.

Comment by throw2ih020 1 day ago

The local car wash has lights that help you park the car pretty precisely under the wash robot. No rails or anything, you park right underneath the robot and it moves around and over the car. The robot doesn't start until you are in position.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by alt227 1 day ago

IMO this would be a terrible idea to let the robots park cars in the same car park as humans. They most likely have a dedicated car park for this where ever car is parked by a robot.

The article says:

"A Stanley Robotics autonomous parking robot then slides underneath the vehicle, lifts it by its tyres and transports it to a secure storage area."

Which seems to suggest this.

Comment by wildzzz 1 day ago

It sounds like the actual lot will be robots only as it mentions parking cars closer together to maximize capacity.

Comment by antihero 1 day ago

I think the OP was talking about humans parking weirdly in the garage the robot picks them up from, not the car park itself—the car park itself is robot only (so they can jam cars together).

Comment by cespare 1 day ago

The parent is wondering about parking in the bay, before the robot picks it up.

Comment by Elhana 1 day ago

Robot = some 3rd world country guy driving in remotely

Comment by matthewpick 1 day ago

You could pack the cars so close together that no one could get into them. Could be seen as a bit of a theft deterrent, although I’m sure the car park itself is pretty secure.

Comment by znkynz 23 hours ago

That's the value change right? You can park more densely as no one needs to get in our out of the vehicle.

Comment by amiga386 1 day ago

Will it meet the same fate as the gimmicky Autosafe SkyPark that opened in 2001 and went bankrupt in 2003, and still had cars in it when the building was demolished nearly 20 years later?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-4...

Comment by lrae 1 day ago

> Maximum weight: 2.6 tonnes

Wonder what the actual limit is and what happens when you're above it (and the other max. dimensions)? Couple of EVs out there that are heavier than 2.6 tonnes now. (Volvo EX90, Mercedes EQS, BMW iX, Ioniq 9, Rivians (not yet in the UK), ... and many more right around that weight.)

Is it getting measured in the cabin and declines you?

Comment by clort 1 day ago

Since you have to book in advance, I guess you give them the number plate details. They can look it up online to see what kind of vehicle it is and can decline to book if too heavy. They can cross check the number plate when you arrive.

Comment by lrae 1 day ago

TIL you can just look up vehicle information via number plate in the UK.

Possible I guess, but what if you don't have UK plates?

Comment by Symbiote 12 hours ago

That would be rare, they could just decline these bookings.

Comment by myself248 1 day ago

I wonder how many people will forget to roll up their windows because they parked in a garage, then the robot leaves the car outside for a week, then the owner comes back to find the car back in the garage but inexplicably soggy and full of mold.

Does the process have a check for forgotten windows?

Comment by mjfisher 1 day ago

In the UK, pretty much zero. Nobody ever leaves their windows down when they leave their car.

Comment by dybber 1 day ago

Is parking with the windows open a normal thing to do in the UK?

Comment by hbcdbff 1 day ago

I have never seen anyone ever park and leave their windows open. Ever

Comment by giobox 22 hours ago

I almost never see it now, but twenty to thirty years ago when there where far more cars on UK roads with no air conditioning, you would very occasionally see someone leave the window slightly open to try and keep cabin temps a little more sane in summer. In the 90s/early 2000s there where a lot of cheap cars (Ford Fiestas, Corsas etc) sold in volume on UK roads with no AC, and on hot days those things would turn to ovens if parked in the sun with the windows up. I used to have to do this occasionally myself with a crap Ford Ka I owned with no AC. It was a pretty normal thing to do back then!

I'm not even sure if it's possible to even buy a new mass-produced car with no AC anymore in the UK, or pretty much anywhere else for that matter.

Comment by myself248 1 day ago

In a garage?

Comment by nfbdhdfbf 1 day ago

You didn’t answer the question Is that a thing people do in the UK? I’ve never heard of anybody doing that. I’m not sure why you would do it.

Comment by 22 hours ago

Comment by clort 1 day ago

Unlikely to be normal, but I have been doing it at a couple of places I park at this year, since I'm there for a while, have to park in the sun and the places are semi-enclosed (ie, it is fenced so random people not walking around but not secure compound level). Also, my car is 17yrs old, I got it for free and don't keep valuable items inside. I prefer leaving the window open to coming back to 38degC inside. No aircon.

Comment by jen20 1 day ago

In a garage or not, it's not a normal thing to do in the UK.

It's also not a _normal_ thing to do in the US, though I have heard some people do it in higher-crime cities to avoid the windows being broken.

Comment by userbinator 23 hours ago

The US is huge. In hot dry rural areas it's also perfectly normal to park with the windows down to avoid the interior getting even hotter. (And theft is not really a concern.)

Comment by ThrowawayTestr 1 day ago

What difference does that make?

Comment by kkrkgbbsvjdlzn 1 day ago

Insurance.

Comment by torginus 21 hours ago

My car rolls up the windows after a while if I leave it and lock it. I though pretty much all cards did.

Comment by ukrulez 1 day ago

This problem has already been solved, better. 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_elevator

Comment by djhworld 1 day ago

It's not quite clear from the video but it looks to me like you park up in the garage, and there's a garage door on the other side. So as you 'check in', I guess the 'human' side you drove in on, that door closes, and then the other side opens for the robots to collect the car which I'm guessing is also where the car storage is.

Sort of feels like those videos you see of high tech warehouses where the human workers really only operate on the outskirts of the building, and everything central is completely automated (picking, sorting, storing, inventory etc)

Comment by jonplackett 1 day ago

The reality of this is a lot less exciting than the headline implies.

Comment by 22 hours ago

Comment by oasisbob 1 day ago

Just in case anyone else is wondering, that article mentions that you get to keep your keys no less than eight times, while being light on all other details.

I miss publications with skilled human editors.

Comment by artisinal 1 day ago

Will probably not be long until a YouTuber tries to hide in their car while it gets picked up. Would make for a fun video.

Tom Scott perhaps? Though he will likely get full access to the system.

Comment by jankcorn 1 day ago

This seems little different from the Automated Parking Systems that I saw in widespread use in Japan from the 1980's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system

(The main difference being 3D in Japan and 2D at Gatwick)

Comment by pkulak 1 day ago

I guess we can add this to the ever-growing list of extremely expensive, complicated, inefficient and convoluted solutions to problems that end with the final specification: "but it can't be a train".

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 1 day ago

My company used to cover a car service for us (limo), my door to the terminal.

When they set up the AirTrain, I stopped using the car service. It took longer, but I have always had a soft spot for mass transit, and I kind of got a kick out of boarding a train in Huntington, NY, and leaving the train, in Shinagawa.

Comment by joe463369 1 day ago

But there is a train to Gatwick.

Comment by jasoncartwright 1 day ago

It's not very good - late around half the time.

https://www.gatwickexpress.com/how-were-performing/train-ser...

Comment by fdsdffds 1 day ago

Yes, let's depend on a train for my time-sensitive journey with lots of awkward luggage.

Do you people even ride trains? Are you OK with the 50/50 odds of gettings home on time?

Comment by niltecedu 1 day ago

Its gatwick, 3 lines go here, one every 15 minutes. I have always taken the train to either Heathrow or Gatwick, there's always been more than enough space to accomodate luggage, idk what people here are on about.

Comment by dymk 1 day ago

A train system is a much safer bet than praying traffic won't be bad

Comment by sealeck 22 hours ago

Trains are literally scheduled according to a timetable... traffic isn’t

Comment by Atlas667 1 day ago

Took the south Florida brightline 3 times, recently, to get to the airport (+2 times for leisure travel) and it was pretty good.

Get there by rideshare in 20 mins, trains on time, 1hr to city, 10 min shuttle to airport. On time every time.

I moved my luggage by hand more WITHIN the airport than getting to the airport.

Would do it again

Comment by rsynnott 1 day ago

I mean, it probably depends on the train line? Only airport train I’ve ever had issues with was Manchester, and more due to an absolutely ridiculous ticketing situation than anything else.

Comment by dyauspitr 1 day ago

Yeah because I want to haul all my luggage on a train journey when I go to the airport. I’ll take a train to a lot of places but the airport is not one of them.

Comment by scratcheee 1 day ago

Easier to haul my luggage on a train designed for that purpose than take a car and spend longer parking it than the entire train journey. I live 10 minutes from Gatwick, have never driven there, and don’t understand why anyone would want to if there’s any alternative.

Taxis I understand.

Comment by glitchcrab 1 day ago

Same, I also live very close to Gatwick, the train is about 4 stops for me and puts me right at the terminal. Zero reason to drive.

Comment by rpadovani 1 day ago

My company pays for taxi from my door to the airport and I still take the train, unless I am leaving before dawn.

There is both a rational environment choice in that, and a nice feeling of being part of a humming crowd

Comment by dyauspitr 1 day ago

I drive an EV powered by my own solar panels. I’ve done my part and frankly don’t much like public transport unless I’m specifically looking to be in the hubbub which is mostly on the weekends when I’m socializing.

Comment by scld 1 day ago

....what part have you done???

Comment by dyauspitr 21 hours ago

For the environment. I’ve done my part for the environment in the travel context. I travel without causing emissions or using any grid power.

Comment by louthy 1 day ago

Presumably, you've never taken the Heathrow Express? That is a train journey that is always better than a car. The Gatwick Express, not so much.

Comment by rsynnott 1 day ago

As far as I can see, the Gatwick express is mostly an excuse to rip people off. Last time I was there, there was a normal train to Victoria for about a third the price, which took literally two minutes longer. Is there a tourney for which the Gatwick express actually makes sense?

Comment by niltecedu 1 day ago

For not being stuck at any shenanigans that might happen at East Croydon.

Comment by entech 1 day ago

Doesn't have to be binary. Train is more efficient at moving large volume of people reliably compared to a bus or a taxi. I would wager that there are many more people travelling with carry-on only or a single bag for which train is more than adequate.

Comment by Gud 1 day ago

I travel 40-50 times a year by flight and I absolutely don't mind taking the train. I live in Zürich which has an excellent rail network.

Comment by lucb1e 1 day ago

15 quid that it won't work without installing an app that could have been a website or a card swipe terminal

Comment by embedding-shape 1 day ago

> The service must be booked in advance. Same-day drive-up parking is not available.

Interesting, I wonder if this is just a "Like to be able to see availability and cross-reference data to set individual pricing" or if it's because of a technical limitation, and if so, what could that possibly be?

Comment by dlopes7 1 day ago

Well if there are 100 cars waiting in line for the little garage to be available it defeats the purpose

Comment by harvey9 1 day ago

This seems like valet parking-like but drivers keep their keys. Possibly solving the untrustworthy valet problem, but unlikely to be price-competitve with the cheap off-site parking firms that usually get mentioned in the consumer problems columns.

Comment by OptionOfT 1 day ago

This is interesting for the point of saving space. You need a lot less space between cars and can easily park multiple rows without having to leave egress space. All you then need to do is move 3 other cars.

Give a buffer that should be feasible.

Comment by flipbrad 1 day ago

I wonder what the failure mode for something like this is (e.g. in bad weather, after a power cut, a car catches fire, etc). Nobody in the country with keys, cars parked so close together you probably couldn't get in anyway... could be interesting!

Comment by mschuster91 1 day ago

> a car catches fire

That's a solved problem, drench the car in copious amounts of water and flush all oxygen with high pressure CO2 tanks.

Comment by SoftTalker 1 day ago

BEV thermal runaway fires are certainly not a solved problem. I'm not sure they are as common as some critics suggest, but they are difficult when they happen.

Comment by ifwinterco 1 day ago

Even without BEVs a fire in a car park can easily result in the whole thing burning to the ground if you're not careful. It happened at Luton a few years ago, and I think in the end they worked out it was a diesel that started it.

You're right though, if every car is a BEV of unknown battery health left for a week+ packed bumper to bumper in a baking hot car park in the middle of summer, that would definitely be considerably worse

Comment by mschuster91 1 day ago

> I'm not sure they are as common as some critics suggest, but they are difficult when they happen.

Indeed, and the usual solution that firefighters choose is to dump copious amounts of water onto the burning vehicle and then drown the carcass into even more water. The biggest issue is that it takes time for the firefighters to arrive - about 10 minutes in Germany by law - and so a fire has quite the time to progress.

Comment by simonbarker87 1 day ago

Of all the airports to do it at in the UK this is probably the one that doesn’t need it. Parking at Gatwick is a breeze, lots of options close and far from the airport and quite reasonably priced. Now Luton, that’s another story.

Comment by beardyw 1 day ago

I remember parking in central London where you left your car in a single space inside a building and it would whisk it up onto some unseen location. I think that was under human control but maybe it will make a comeback with automation.

Comment by krisoft 1 day ago

There are some horror stories when those kind of systems break down.

For example this one is about a van which got stuck in one for two years: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx207jwknp5o

Or there was one in Sweden which trapped cars for 2 months: https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/fnurret-pa-psnurran--m-vill-se-... (sorry, could only find a swedish source)

It is because these kind of systems are complicated bespoke automation. When it breaks down it costs a fortune to fix it. And what can happen is that different parties (operators vs manufacture vs maintainer) gets into a contract dispute to see who is liable to pay to get it fixed. Which as you can guess can take years to play out. Meanwhile your vehicle is stuck and nobody who could is interested in spending a penny on getting it out.

In contrast to that this project is better in two ways. There are multiple robots. (or at least there really should be) So if one breaks down the other robots can still retrieve cars (albeit of course with reduced throughput). And because the storage is just a flat parking lot if all the robots give up the ghost at the same time humans can drive out the cars from the edges of the storage rows.

Comment by 0x3f 1 day ago

Where was this? I've only seen it in London at very high end residential places. Even then it's rare. Most privately-owned public car parks in London are dilapidated and full of thieves, but still command premium pricing. It would surprise me if one bothered to build the infra for this.

Comment by tonyedgecombe 1 day ago

I remember using one in Fleet Street in the eighties.

Comment by dgellow 1 day ago

I never thought about this, can you steal cars by lifting them like that in the air? Not that I think that will happen, but it would be really funny to hack such a robot and just collect cars around

Comment by jameshart 1 day ago

This technique is frequently used by towing companies impounding cars and reposession agents collecting cars for loan defaults - absolutely you can pick up and take a car away with the right hardware.

Just for most people a stolen locked car isn’t really of much uses.

Comment by kkrkgbbsvjdlzn 1 day ago

Already invented protection for this. https://youtube.com/watch?v=n1Ug4I89c98

Comment by OptionOfT 1 day ago

Yes. If you can get under it.

Comment by inigyou 1 day ago

There are systems where you park your car on a moving platform and the whole platform slots into an underground warehouse. That seems simpler and safer.

Comment by dybber 1 day ago

I don’t think they’re mechanically simpler. Those kinds of underground garages probably require a lot of maintenance to keep running.

Comment by kioleanu 1 day ago

Are these not the guys that ask like 7 pounds to drive up to kiss & fly? Good to see that money’s put to good use!

Comment by amiga386 1 day ago

You're behind the times. It's 10 pounds now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lqd72d4lqo

Comment by jplrssn 1 day ago

£7 is about the price of a pint. Surely that’s worth it given the convenience of driving right up to the front door of the terminal?

Comment by kioleanu 1 day ago

I may be a socialist but being able to bring your heavy luggage to the door of the place you already pay a fee to be at (airport taxes) should be free, no? Like in all other parts of Europe

And they say, oh, no, you can come for free if you’re willing to walk 15 minutes to the terminal. No, that’s greed plain and simple.

Comment by Gud 1 day ago

Not everyone takes the car. Why should people who don't deem it necessary to take a personal vehicle to one of the most expensive locations on the planet(city airport) subsidize those who do?

Comment by kioleanu 1 day ago

What exactly would be subsidized by the people taking the train if the people driving up to (not parking at!) the airport wouldn’t pay a fee?

Comment by Gud 8 hours ago

The roads at the airport?

With that said, at Zürich airport, you do have ~5 minutes before there's a charge which I find reasonable.

Comment by ryanmcbride 1 day ago

Wow finally something capable of parking cars! I'm sure it'll be so much better and cheaper than just paying valets to do it too!

Comment by reenorap 1 day ago

The cookie screen for this web site is the most deceitful I’ve come across in a long time. How do I report this?

Comment by ashayh 1 day ago

Meanwhile, Gatwick currently doesn't have running toilets: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdew2dnxlzzo

How about we fix basic issue as a species first, before going all robots and AI and trips to Mars?

Comment by nialv7 23 hours ago

meanwhile, in japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voYdl7IFZsM

Comment by bookofjoe 1 day ago

>Gatwick Airport left without running water after major outage

https://archive.ph/IrBH8#selection-575.0-575.61

Comment by luciana1u 23 hours ago

parking was the one part of the airport experience that wasn't broken. naturally, that's what they fixed first.

Comment by trebligdivad 1 day ago

I wonder what their secure parking area looks like.

Comment by krisoft 1 day ago

A fenced off flat parking lot with a few cameras here and there. Not sure what you expect.

Comment by trebligdivad 1 day ago

Well that's why I ask - a lot of 'secure' airport parking suffers from people stealing from it.

Comment by jq-r 1 day ago

Honest question, what there is to steal from a car what was left on the parking lot? Especially on an airport where I assume everyone flies off with their luggage and leave nothing or nothing of value behind.

Comment by trebligdivad 1 day ago

The car.

Comment by krisoft 1 day ago

I wouldn't think that should be a problem here if there is any sanity how the system is implemented. With a normal (short stay, long stay) parking lot it is expected that cars leave all the time. A thief breaking into your car and driving off with it, and you getting into your car and driving off with it looks almost the same visually.

Here cars normally leave by a robot picking it up and depositing the vehicle in a garage. Probably there is a vehicle entrance to the parking area for maintenance, but it would be weird to see a car leave through that. Similarly thiefs could cut a hole in the fence and drive through that but again, visually very distinct from a normal operation. Of course it still doesn't help if the security is in on it, but it would be easier to notice that things are askew for a competent security.

So that leaves us with the thieves somehow confusing the digital systems so it dispenses the car to the thieves. And that very much depends on the security of their digital systems.

Hence why I think it would be hard to secure a normal parking lot even when operated competently. But this has the potential if implemented well, to be much more secure.

Comment by chedabob 1 day ago

I agree with you, but given that a lot of car theft is now done by exploiting the keyless entry system, it feels like there'd be easier targets.

Comment by trebligdivad 1 day ago

They are different opportunities for thieves; airport parking has an advantage that the owners are expected to be away for a while, and, if someone is involved in the parking then they know they may be away for lets say 2 weeks. So then the thief thinks if they can steal the car soon after they arrive no one will notice for ~2 weeks by which time it's in a container on the otherside of the world.

Comment by helsinkiandrew 1 day ago

You can see it on Google maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MQjWHbbc5jeUryGU7?g_st=ic

Comment by trebligdivad 1 day ago

So is it that normal looking parking area or is that a multi storey behind the places they show in the video?

Comment by stronglikedan 1 day ago

If you knew what it looked like, it wouldn't be as secure!

Comment by mfldkjgkfl 1 day ago

In what way is this better than an uber?

Comment by tene80i 23 hours ago

Price, depending on how far away you live.

Comment by jauntywundrkind 1 day ago

A sci-fi dream i have is that cars and their engines decouple. That you just own a shell, an egg, and the town owns all the engines. (This dream also includes warehouses and delivery robots of many sizes owned by the town too).

In a funny way, this sort of does that. Sure your car still has an engine but this very much is the car-shell tractor, in practice. This is really neat to see.

I wish them luck. I hope it is reliable enough! It looks pretty straightforwards in how it picks up wheels, which is neat.

Comment by pj_mukh 1 day ago

Great, now let's (gradually) get rid of all surface parking lots and build hyper-optimized multi-floor parking setups not made for human driving. A sort of Ocado Grocery Warehouse [1] for cars.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE

As always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.

Comment by amiga386 1 day ago

Not the best example...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQQlREtqAM8

As far as I understand, first one Ocado robot went on fire, it doesn't have a sensor for fire so it kept going. Neither do its neighbours, who pass right by it and catch fire themselves. And so it keeps going until everything is on fire.

Comment by fortran77 23 hours ago

The video didn't show how it actually gets under your t[y|i]res and then gets out from under your tires when it's moved it.

Comment by Onavo 1 day ago

Can it handle EVs safely? The bottom battery often causes...issues if you don't have a lifting puck to spread the weight.

Comment by Finnucane 1 day ago

So robots: yes. Water: no.

Comment by blondie9x 1 day ago

This is so unnecessary. Just make better transit options and make it more affordable for people to go to airport.

Comment by ukrulez 1 day ago

Why even go to the airport? Take the train to where you are going.

Comment by varispeed 1 day ago

I heard horror stories, where "secure storage area" was actually a field without any security. Not saying this is the case here, but one must be mad to give a car like that without knowing exact location it is going.

It's one of the things where I can't see what is there robot's role here.

Comment by djhworld 1 day ago

I doubt the robots have sufficient enough traction/mobility to navigate on any surface that isn't reasonably smooth like tarmac. Also I'd wager the car park the robots go to isn't that far away from the drop off location, most likely on the same land owned by the airport.

Comment by varispeed 1 day ago

My guess is they take the car away from the drop off point to employee pick up point and human drives them away to the "secure location".

Comment by txomon 1 day ago

Am I the only one bothered because the license plate masking they have used is so bad that you can see the License plate whole several times?