A research on fully automated parking systems and operational planning and control problems

Due to the rapid increase in the population all over the world, the increase in the number of vehicles causes serious parking problems, especially in crowded cities. Considering the limited available spaces in highly populated cities, traditional parking systems (flat or multi-story) mostly unable to meet the demand due to the large space they need. Therefore, various parking systems that enable to use of both horizontal and vertical areas more effectively have been developed with the help of technological developments. Especially in the last two decades, Fully Automatic Parking Systems (FAPS) appear as the new generation parking systems where sensor technology is used and parking operations are carried out with the help of automatic carriers (lifts, conveyors, robots). FAPSs offer an effective and environmentally friendly solution to the parking space problem owing to the design and technologies they use. However, there is still a need for academic researches that address the operational efficiency/effectivity of the system. As a matter of fact, there are many studies in the scientific literature on the design of FAPSs and the technologies to be used in FAPSs while the number of studies dealing with operational planning and control problems of FAPSs is very limited. Based on these findings, different types of FAPSs are investigated in terms of technical and operational aspect and potential research areas that could increase the operational efficiency and effectivity are revealed in the scope of this research