If you’ve ever explored an automated or puzzle-parking solution, chances are your first question was, “How long will it take to get my car?”
It’s a fair concern—and one we hear from nearly every developer and property owner we work with. But real-world data tells a different story: car retrieval in a well-designed automated system is faster, smoother, and far more predictable than most people imagine.
Real Data Beats Assumptions
At The Trivial Company, we’ve been monitoring our installed systems for years through our proprietary RAUL™ data platform. RAUL™ tracks live usage patterns—every retrieval, every gate call, every peak period—so we don’t have to guess how these systems perform. We know.
When one of our partners asked whether a 120-car project would handle morning traffic efficiently, we turned to this data for the answer. The comparison point? A similar 96-space, 3-level system with two gates.
The chart below—based on live RAUL™ data—shows actual retrieval calls per 10-minute interval for that property. You can clearly see how vehicle requests occur in short, staggered bursts rather than a single surge, illustrating the natural rhythm of departures that keeps retrieval times consistent and efficient.
The numbers speak for themselves:
- Average retrieval time: ~2 minutes from call to exit
- Peak call clustering: no more than four requests within a 10-minute window per two-gate group
- Observed flow: consistently staggered departures throughout morning hours. Even during the busiest intervals, retrieval remained seamless—no backups, no bottlenecks, no long lines of drivers waiting around.
The Myth of the Morning Rush
It’s easy to picture everyone leaving at once, but real-world behavior rarely works that way. As Ariotti et al. note in their study A Queuing Approach to Parking: Modeling, Verification, and Prediction (read here), “arrivals occur randomly and independently over time rather than at fixed rush periods.” Academic data show this as well as The Trivial Company’s real-time data, as shown in the image at the top of the page.
Across every RAUL™-monitored site, the pattern repeats itself: departures naturally stagger within two- to three-minute intervals. The idea of dozens of people all hitting “retrieve” at the same time simply doesn’t happen.
This insight matters because it changes how developers should think about design trade-offs. You could add more gates or cages to shave seconds off retrieval time—but that often means losing valuable parking spaces and increasing costs for minimal gain. Efficiency isn’t just about speed; it’s about smart balance.
Designing for Real Efficiency
Every project comes with unique constraints: footprint, number of levels, available gates, and local traffic flow. Rather than rely on theoretical models, we use live data to inform each configuration.
That means:
- Grouping gates strategically to balance throughput
- Modeling retrieval patterns before construction begins
- Optimizing capacity without compromising convenience
With over 50 years of combined contracting experience, our team builds systems that are technically sound and operationally intuitive. The data doesn’t just prove performance—it shapes it.
RAUL™: Our Advantage in the Field
Our continuous monitoring through RAUL™ lets us gather insights that typical installers never see. We can evaluate how systems behave during real usage—tracking call frequency, timing, and gate response—and use that information to fine-tune future builds.
The result: parking systems designed not from assumptions, but from evidence.
Faster Than You Think
Retrieving a car from an automated parking system shouldn’t feel like waiting for an elevator. And it doesn’t.
In practice, most users see their vehicles in under two minutes—faster than many valet services or crowded surface lots during peak hours.
At The Trivial Company, we turn parking challenges into something Trivial. Backed by live RAUL™ data and decades of engineering experience, our systems are built for real-world performance, not theoretical perfection.
Curious about how fast your next project could run?
Contact The Trivial Company to see actual retrieval data from our live installations.
Because when it comes to automated parking, the wait isn’t what you think—it’s shorter.