Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 4 (IANS) Driving to the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport here and worried about finding parking space? Not any more. Come July 16 and the new Terminal-3 (T3) will boast of the largest multi-level car parking (MLCP) facility in the country, with a capacity of 4,300 cars.
“For an infrastructure facility like an airport, a good parking facility becomes imperative for smooth traffic flow and a significant criterion for determining passenger comfort,” an official of Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) said on the condition of anonymity.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday inaugurated the glitzy new T3 terminal at the IGI Airport, stated to be the sixth largest and among the most modern in the world, built in record 37 months at a cost of nearly $3 billion.

The actual operations will however start only on July 16, well in time for the Commonwealth Games to be held in the capital in October.

“The combined parking facility at both the domestic and international terminal is around 2,000. MLCP is important because T3 will handle both international and domestic operations,” the DIAL official said.

MLCP has been described as an effective space management system for solving parking woes all over the world. It can be described as a parking building, with multiple floors to park on, thus saving space and time for parking.

“At T3, the multi-level car parking will be ground plus a five-floor structure. With seven levels, the terrace will also be used for parking,” the official added.

The ground floor of MLCP will be 19,263 sq metres and the other floors above will be 19,155 sq metres each.

“The parking structure will be well connected to the T3 building through a corridor at ground level and through an air-conditioned elevated sky walk with travelators,” the official added.

MLCP will have four entry and exit gates at the ground floor, while the upper floors of the parking facility will have two entry and exit lanes.

For faster traffic movement, MLCP will employ both electronic and static signages to guide the drivers to reach a vacant parking spot on the closest parking level.

“This will be supported by an electronic system called the Space Availability Display System (SADS),” the official added.

The maximum time from the entry to a parking bay and from there to the exit point is expected to be approximately five minutes.

According to DIAL, the entry into MLCP will be based on a semi-automatic ticketing system. Parking tickets will be dispensed through the automatic dispensers before entry and payments shall be taken through cash and credit cards.

Another integrated system called the Airport Parking Payment System (APPS), will support the payments and calculation of usage time for parking.

“The parking facilities will also feature Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV), Public Address (PA) system and live Flight Information Display System (FIDS),” the official said.

T3 will also include 78 aerobridges, 63 elevators, 35 escalators, 168 check-in counters, 95 immigration counters, and a high speed metro rail link to the city centre.