Parking Tower Like a Paternoster for Cars

Related Vendors

Rodriguez GmbH

FAULHABER Drive Systems

Wuxi InfiMotion Technology Co., Ltd.

In "vertical parking," cars are positioned on top of each other instead of side by side. A special system moves the cars within the tower based on the paternoster principle. Slewing bearings play an important role in this.

Parking twelve cars on an area of seven by seven meters? This is possible with vertical parking, also known as Vepa: In vertical parking, vehicles are stacked on top of each other in a parking tower. In this way, up to twelve vehicles can fit in an area where otherwise only four cars could stand.

Vertical Parking was developed by the startup of the same name, which emerged from the entrepreneurship incubator at TU Munich. Founders Simon Schubnell and David Schön were inspired by similar concepts from Asia and adapted them to German conditions.

Rotating Parking System

How must the tower be constructed to remain robust and weather-resistant even at temperatures as low as -20 degrees? How are entry and exit managed? And most importantly, how is the transport mechanism for the vehicles in the tower designed? With a full load of twelve vehicles, a total weight of 30 tons or more is to be expected. These were the questions the two founders and their team tackled.

For technical details, they collaborated with practical partners; for the bearings in the transport system, they chose slewing bearings from Rodriguez. Durability, minimal wear, and low maintenance requirements were the startup's demands.

"Thanks to our new design concepts and improved manufacturing processes, designers can develop completely new ideas and solutions with our slewing bearings," emphasizes Product Manager Andreas Schön. The company produces rotary products, rolling bearings, and linear technology. The range includes, among other things, round and profile rail guides, ball and trapezoidal screw drives, as well as electric actuators and ball rollers. In addition to individual solutions, it also develops complete linear systems with various drive options for applications in different industries – from aviation to special machinery construction.

Robust and Low-Friction Slewing Bearings

For the parking tower, slewing bearings from this portfolio were primarily required. These components consist of an inner and an outer ring, with balls serving as rolling elements between them. As a result, they are particularly robust and can withstand high axial or radial loads. At the same time, they exhibit especially low friction losses. These two factors were crucial for their use in the Vepa parking tower.

The proven slewing bearings, used for many years, are also corrosion-resistant and available with inner diameters of up to 30 mm and outer diameters of up to 6,100 mm.

In the drive system of the vertical parking, the slewing bearings provide the necessary stability and enable the rotational movements of the drive units. In the parking tower, the vehicles are moved in so-called gondolas. These can each carry up to 2.7 tons and are attached to a circulating chain driven by a 30-kilowatt motor.

Half of the Parking Spaces with Charging Boxes

After a four-year development period, Vertical Parking has now opened the first public parking tower in the Werksviertel-Mitte district in Munich. In 2023, a private tower for a company in Munich-Freising was already launched. The VePa in the Werksviertel, near Munich's East Station, is open for use by all citizens. Users check in digitally and drive forward into the gondola. According to the operator, retrieving the vehicle takes a maximum of 90 seconds before the car is ready and users can also drive out forward.

At the Munich parking tower, half of the gondolas are equipped with EV charging boxes. This means that while the electric car is parked and possibly "traveling" in the paternoster, the battery is being charged. Currently, 11-kilowatt wall boxes are available for this purpose. However, the tower is designed to also enable high-performance HPC charging with 50 kilowatts or even inductive charging in the long term.

Sustainability is essential to the founders Simon Schubnell and David Schön. "Our shared goal is to make stationary traffic more efficient and to rethink urban spaces," they say. Due to its small space requirement, other areas that would otherwise be parked over could be unsealed and used ecologically. Alternatively, freed-up spaces could also be used for much-needed inner-city housing. Unlike an underground garage, the parking tower eliminates the need for expensive and complex excavation work and can be easily dismantled or reassembled at a different location.

Further Towers Planned

According to the wishes of the two founders, many more parking towers with charging infrastructure are to follow the Munich tower. The next one is already planned at a central location in Berlin, at Hackescher Markt in the Mitte district. And in Munich alone, says David Schön, the potential lies at 35 to 40 more of these parking towers.

Unlike parking towers in Asia, which served as inspiration and often appear as bare steel frameworks, the Vertical Parking tower in Munich is clad with wooden elements, and some surfaces are artistically designed. The design by Munich artist Mariella Kerscher depicts two intertwined umbilical cords, which she claims symbolize a feminine motif in contrast to the male-associated car. For future projects, cladding with perforated metal sheets or greening a tower is also conceivable — which would then be Vertical Gardening for Vertical Parking.