You know that we three travel quite a bit each year, often having to hop a plane to head off to the next race or show that we need to cover. Lohnes goes to Boston, Chad hits the nearest location in relation to where he’s at, and I usually make a trip down to Nashville International. But before I set foot inside of BNA, I have to make one other stop, at the parking service just outside of the airport proper. Parking at the airport, any airport, is an expensive pain in the ass. You can’t help the monetary part of the program…behind the scenes, those parking fees make up a huge amount of maintenance budgets and upgrade project costs. But as anyone who has done so will tell you, the hell that is hunting down a parking space to leave your car for a couple of days can be more infuriating than the security pat-down or the three-mile line to check your baggage.

That might be changing sooner than later. Gatwick Airport, the second-busiest airport in the U.K. and the second-busiest airport in the world with a single runway, is being upgraded to incorporate a robotic parking system that will be tested out for three months. Using parking robots from Stanley Robotics, the robot consists of a large carriage system (a body-length beam with four tire wells) that will lift the entire vehicle up and carry it to it’s designated spot, one of 270 spots that Gatwick will be using for the test system. The robotic handlers can be programmed with the flight details of the vehicle’s owners and can fetch the automobile when their plane lands.

(Courtesy: Carscoops)