Skip to main content

Tokyo’s cycle parking problem solved

Cycles are a popular form of transportation in Japan. However, they can take up a lot of public space when parked. Japanese construction company Giken has come up with the answer; its Eco Cycle is an anti-seismic automated underground storage system. Buried eleven metres below ground, Eco Cycle has a capacity of around 200 cycles and each one takes around thirteen seconds to store. Users attach a sensor to their cycle, which alerts the Eco Cycle centre that a cycle is on its way. The user then rolls the f
August 9, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Cycles are a popular form of transportation in Japan. However, they can take up a lot of public space when parked.

Japanese construction company 7445 Giken has come up with the answer; its Eco Cycle is an anti-seismic automated underground storage system.  Buried eleven metres below ground, Eco Cycle has a capacity of around 200 cycles and each one takes around thirteen seconds to store.

Users attach a sensor to their cycle, which alerts the Eco Cycle centre that a cycle is on its way.  The user then rolls the front wheel into the opening of the parking machine, stands clear, and pushes a green button. In about eight seconds the bike is pulled into the kiosk and a robotic lift stores the cycle. To retrieve his cycle, the user simply waves his card over a sensor and the robotic arm pulls out the bicycle and brings it back up in approximately thirteen seconds.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • No ifs or buts
    February 27, 2012
    For twenty-some years I lived in Crawley in south-east England.
  • Taking the hassle out of parking
    April 29, 2015
    A team of senior electrical and computer engineers from Rice University in Houston, Texas, has developed a new parking technology called ParkiT, with the aim of making it easier to find a parking space in a crowded car park. The team claims the new system is cheaper than sensor technology currently being used and would provide car park managers and attendants with real time information on available parking spaces. That information could then be shared with drivers through electronic signs or a driver-fri
  • UK project demonstrates vehicle remote operation and autonomy for disabled drivers
    January 4, 2017
    The UK’s first demonstration of a remotely-operated autonomous vehicle service for people with reduced mobility has been successfully completed as part of the GATEway project (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment), led by TRL. Taking place at the InterContinental Hotel in the Royal Borough of Greenwich and completed using an autonomous-enabled Toyota Prius, the demonstration marked the end of a fortnight of testing in which GATEway partners Gobotix and O2 were able to successfully demonstrate remote
  • Jonathan Raper from TransportAPI is surfing the open data tidal wave
    August 13, 2015
    Jonathan Raper, managing director of the TransportAPI talks to Colin Sowman about the benefits open data can bring to the public transport sector. That the digital revolution would change the world, including transport, was never in doubt but the question has always been: how? Now, with the ‘Millennium Bug’ relegated to a question on quiz shows, the potential and challenges of digital technology are starting to take shape - and Jonathan Raper is in the vanguard. Raper is managing director of the open data t