Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How Its Made : Tokyo Underground Bike Parking

Readers will remember that I blogged last year about the brilliant underground bike parking system made by the Japanese at Nishi-Kasai Station in Edogawa, Tokyo. I just happened to discover a cool video from Japanese news broadcaster Newsline which details how one of these these automated parking systems, called Eco Cycle, was designed & constructed and the machines which were employed in the process. This really looks to have been a neat little civil engineering project for the developers - Giken Seisakusho Group.


A picture of Giken's 'Silent Piling Machine' which takes prefabricated structural piles and presses them into the ground at high pressure without vibration and excessive noise. Courtesy Giken.


ADDITIONAL READING :

How Servomotors Work

Deep Foundation Construction

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4 comments:

  1. 1GAEJune 24, 2009 at 6:49 PM

    Small detail; I think you are referring to the Kasai underground bike parking. Nishi-kasai is one station west from Kasai. Its underground bike parking is not automated. This said, while Kasai is Japan's largest bicycle parking facility in Japan, Nishi-kasai is the second. There are lots of bicycles in Edogawa-ku!

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  2. 1GAEJune 25, 2009 at 4:16 AM

    Ron: the parking facilicity in Nishi-kasai is underground, but users have to manually put their bicycles on the racks-no buttons or bicycles disappearing in large underground barrels there. I'm a daily user of Kasai's automated bike parking and I've posted a few videos on youtube http://www.youtube.com/1GAE. Maybe when I have time I can go to Nishi-kasai's parking facility and shoot a few videos there. It's not as spectacular, but it's still better than what most cities have.

    As for the video you've included in your post, I don't know which bike parking it refers to, but it's not in Edogawa-ku.

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  3. AnonymousJune 25, 2009 at 11:09 PM

    So what happens to the piles after the construction is over? Does it get removed or become part of the structure itself?

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  4. 1GAEJuly 10, 2009 at 7:09 AM

    This is what the Edogawa-ku, Kasai station automatic bicycle parking facility looks like:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7uJm3O1Z-Y
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttyGS4HpgsE
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG5Buujlrbg&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtzMHd2P3BE&feature=related

    ReplyDelete

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