How do very large car parks deal with abandoned cars?

October 9, 2009 6:42 PM

How do massive long-stay carparks (like those at airports), that have too many cars to keep track of individually, deal with the problem of cars that are never collected?

I imagine it must happen - people park their cars in airports then disappear from the country. Not often but I don't think a couple of cars a year is an unreasonable guess.

How do these massive car parks deal with abandoned cars - do they ever know they're there?

In a small car park, a car parked in the same place for ages would be noticed after a short while, but in a car park that acts as a home for several thousand cars, surely the car just stays there for an eternity. Or is there some kind of checking procedure - and if so what is it!

posted by cdenman to Travel & Transportation (9 answers total)

I would assume it's integrated into whatever system they use to make sure people are paying to park their cars there anod not just parking for free.
posted by IndigoRain at 6:59 PM on October 9, 2009

They *do* keep track of them individually. They drive by each car at least daily and take pictures of all the plates. Once I lost my car in the lot, they called it in, and told me where it was.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:00 PM on October 9, 2009

Previously: How do they know where i parked at Logan Airport?

Not all systems are that sophisticated though.
posted by smackfu at 7:13 PM on October 9, 2009

They track the plates, but at what point do they decide that a car is abandoned not just parked for a long time?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 8:34 PM on October 9, 2009

There's probably a small, mostly-unnoticed sign somewhere along the lines of "cars left more than X [say, 90] days will be treated as abandoned".
posted by dhartung at 8:45 PM on October 9, 2009

These are relatively recent developments. When the Toronto Pearson Terminal 1 parking lot was due to be demolished, teh Globe and Mail reported that they found several cars which had been there for 5+ years.
posted by scruss at 8:53 PM on October 9, 2009

Before computers, I assume they'd still want to take periodic inventory— sending a guy around with a clipboard periodically might be more trouble than it's worth, but they could use the chalk-stick technique that city parking enforcement often uses, for example.
posted by hattifattener at 9:17 PM on October 9, 2009

Some of the new systems are even called "Electronic Tire Chalking".
posted by smackfu at 9:34 PM on October 9, 2009

At Dulles International Airport, in suburban Washington DC, they auction off the abandoned cars once or twice a year; there are many because folks stationed at embassies drive them to the valet service, head for the home country and never return.

I once left a car at National Airport for over two months. After 60 days, it had been moved to a holding lot and was on its way to being presumed abandoned. The staff told me they had a notification procedure involving registered letters would begin after 90 days and that they could sell it after, I think, 120 days but that it often took longer. She started right up!
posted by carmicha at 9:21 AM on October 10, 2009