Your parking lot configuration says a lot about your property. It holds that much importance that a mathematician from the University of Salford has allotted time and effort to identify the perfect parking lot. According to Professor David Percy, the parking lot design should only favor one-way traffic and should follow a diagonal space layout. He also added that a 45-degree angle is the most efficient option to go for.
Still need more convincing? Read on for some more reasons on why parking lot configuration is important.
Parking lot configuration is important because it is part of your property’s experience
Whether you own a grocery store, a mall, an office or even a museum, one of the first things that your customer experiences in your property is its parking lot. It can actually set the mood of your customer or employee. You wouldn’t want a hot-headed person entering your property because he had trouble parking his car.
The same goes for when your customer is leaving your facility. They could have a wonderful experience inside your facility but their bad experience leaving the parking lot could overshadow all of these. This is why planning out the entrances and exits of a parking lot is important. It should be on the basis of traffic around the lot. The number of cards and foot traffic should also be taken into consideration.
There’s a science behind it.
Parking lot configuration is highly important in people’s everyday lives that the University of Idaho did a study about it. You don’t just take a big parcel of land and simply cut it into the most number of stalls to increase profit, there are a lot of factors to consider. These are just some of them:
- Changes in vehicle dimensions
- Type of operation planned for the facility
- Flow of traffic in the area
- Duration of the parking
- Angle of the parking space
A good parking lot configuration should be able to adapt to future changes in the dimensions of vehicles. It is predicted that the design for future parking facilities should be able to accommodate a wide range of vehicle sizes. Whether it’s for minivans, sports utility vehicles or for pickup trucks, a well-designed parking lot will be able to fit whatever car is available.
It should be able to service anyone.
A parking lot should be accessible to any one including the differently-abled. The Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities or the ADAAG requires a specific number of parking spaces and the corresponding dimensions of accessible parking lots. The number is dependent on the total number of parking lots available in the facility.
Whenever possible, these spaces should be near the facility entrance and should be able to minimize the distance traveled. ADAAG also specifies that one in eight accessible places should be “van accessible”. Specifically, these spaces should be 96 inches or 2440mm wide.
Take these access aisles into consideration. These need to be part of the accessible path leading towards the building and should be five feet wide. It is also important that both the parking space and access aisle are level and with surface slopes that are no greater than 2% in all directions. All of these should be strictly followed in order to provide smooth access to people with disabilities.
It can contribute to profitability.
A good parking lot configuration means happy parking lot customers. This means, you will have preference over other parking lots in the area. If you put importance to the lot’s configuration, you could end up saving money too. How so? There are some layouts that are quicker to clean which means money saved from your cleaning maintenance company.
Whatever configuration it should be, you have to make sure that it lets you utilize your budget efficiently.
Safety and security are at stake.
A well designed parking lot should be able to provide a smooth experience to a person. The parking lot should have the correct marks as this is part of their legal obligation. The objective of the markings is to maintain safety throughout the parking lot. It indicates where the car should park, where pedestrians should walk, and provides overall order to ensure safety.
Keep barriers in place to stop cars from parking into a space which can lead to:
- Blocking the adjacent parking space, curb, or sidewalk
- Getting in contact with a building wall thus causing damage
These barriers should be made of concrete and are usually horizontal in shape in order to stop the tires of a car from moving forward.
Regardless of parking lot configuration your property follows, Prestige Property Services will be able to clean it. Call now at 714-224-0301 to get started!