Parking Problems in Metropolitan Cities in India



Parking Problem in Urban India

Our Indian automobile market has come a long way from the 1980s when the consumer had only a few options to choose from when it came to buying a new car. Anyhow the fact is buying a new car is no longer a status symbol at least in the metropolitan cities and is more of a necessity. But as in there has been a wide gap in the growth of infrastructure and the growth of our Indian automobile industry there is already a big huge parking problem that the country faces today. For being less informed India is currently the 11th largest passenger car market in the world and as per the estimates of JD Power and Associates-and it will be the third largest market in the world by the end of 2020.

There have been many debates about the changes required in the Parking Act in order to be future ready but at the same time the government cannot lose its focus on developing new mechanisms and installing modern and tricky parking solutions. Recently held Inter Traffic 2011 several local and international players showcased modern parking solutions eyeing a lucrative opportunity springing out of the issues that India is facing today. Almost around 120 companies from 25 different countries gathered under one roof to demonstrate modern solutions to the parking problems in India.

On the other hand government surely needs to implement new set of rules as the landscape of the market has changed dramatically over the past few years but there is a need to build modern parking infrastructure to complement the new rules. As a matter of fact the infrastructure in the country still has a long way to cover before it matches the global standards the country still has an best opportunity to set things right before it gets too late.

Some of the Equipment’s like access control barriers and vehicle detection and automatic parking technology systems are some of the few solutions needed to solve the parking chaos in the country. It is Needless to mention it is easier said than done and the long list of regulatory approvals required before this equipment’s can be installed in a type of facility is surely a bottleneck in the growth story of the country.

First of all our government should work on devising a proper parking management policy in place. It is said that free parking on the roads will only give rise to the overall congestion of heavy vehicles. As a matter of fact there is a need to manage the demand and supply in a better fashion to pave way for the modern parking solutions to come into the picture.

For now and then exhibitions like Inter Traffic 2011 have clearly shown the solutions that are available for the Indian market but there is still a need to do the required groundwork before the country thinks about installing them on a mass-level.