Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

aerospaceglobalnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 285 posts

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#221

Post by Grombobulous »

juleiie wrote: post #205
Grombobulous wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 viciou…

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...

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#223

Post by juleiie »

Grombobulous wrote: post #221
juleiie wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 viciou…

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 d…

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.

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#225

Post by giobox »

hbcdbff wrote: post #177
dybber wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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.

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#226

Post by iamben »

scoot wrote: post #198
iamben wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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?

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#227

Post by Grombobulous »

juleiie wrote: post #223
Grombobulous wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

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…

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.

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#228

Post by myself248 »

grogenaut wrote: post #144
myself248 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 the…

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.

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#229

Post by forgetfreeman »

longsangstan wrote: post #97

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.

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.

Re: London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service

#230

Post by annzabelle »

yurishimo wrote: post #185
juleiie wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 pu…

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.

Post reply on HN