Auto parking will enhance convenience and help environment: Bosch

A Bosch executive has hailed automated parking as the way of the future for vehicle owners.

Not only will leaving the car to park itself save time, it will also save fuel – and therefore help the environment – argues Dr Dirk Hoheisel, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management.

"The mobility of the future starts today – with smart parking," Dr Hoheisel was quoted saying in a press release.

Bosch, which is partnered with Mercedes-Benz in the development of automated parking technology, currently has 2500 engineers working on the project – up 500 more than in 2015.

Although Hoheisel doesn't say as much, automated parking as envisaged by Benz and Bosch is a significant milestone on the road to autonomous motoring. The partner companies anticipate that vehicles equipped to work interactively with communications infrastructure in parking garages will be able to park themselves without human interaction. The driver will merely issue the car with the command to park itself – and without being physically seated in the car.

This is one step removed from BMW's 7 Series, which has technology to park without the driver being inside the car, but the driver is still operating the vehicle – albeit remotely. Other companies known to be working on self-parking vehicle technology include Volvo and Valeo, but the latter requires the driver to be ready to intervene and override the system if it all goes pear-shaped. There's a clear implication that the Benz/Bosch system should work flawlessly with no 'meatbag' supervision whatsoever.

To date, self-parking cars have been limited to automated steering, but have relied on the driver to apply brake and throttle. The Bosch/Benz system introduces basic operational autonomy in the truest sense, but it's a stretch from there to full autonomous motoring at open-road speeds or in high-density traffic, interacting with cars, pedestrians and cyclists.

Bosch is encouraged nonetheless by the take-up of basic parking assistance systems in new cars. It signals a consumer-led demand for more convenient motoring. According to sales stats for Germany in 2014, 52 per cent of cars were sold with parking assistance systems.

The company plans to be at the forefront of automated parking technology and Hoheisel says that Bosch is committed to the development of fixed monitoring systems that report available spaces in each car park, as well as sensors in the cars that can identify kerbs and line markings from within the car and compile digitised mapping data on the fly to guide the vehicle safely.

"In offering intelligent services, Bosch also takes on the often arduous task of looking for available parking, thereby saving time and reducing stress," Hoheisel says.

"Having cars drive directly to available parking spaces will also mean a reduction in pollution."

German drivers are reportedly travelling up to 4.5km on average, in the search for a free parking spot.

"Parking as we know it today won't exist in the future," Hoheisel says. "Going to a concert no longer means starting and ending your evening in a drafty parking garage."