white paper

56 downloads 174421 Views 1MB Size Report
Dec 28, 2016 - Eliminates access for suicides: CCRG garages are common sites for suicides, .... believes its patented and proven-in-practice design best fulfills ..... https://parkithere.wordpress.com/tag/automated-parking-garage/page/4/.
WHITE PAPER “Robotic Parking Systems, Inc.” Garages: Safer, Greener, Aesthetic, & Life-Cycle Cost Winners by Roger C. Courtney, Esq.* 28 December 2016 How many of us don’t fear or loathe parking in status quo conventional concrete ramp garages (“CCRGs”)? How much commerce is lost by businesses from potential shoppers who purposely avoid entities that adjoin CCRGs? CCRGs expose patrons to excessive and unwarranted risks of physical and sexual assault, vehicle loss, property damage, theft, fire, and excessive carbon emissions,1 not to mention traffic jams and GDP loss! 2 CCRGs, especially as part of hospitals, and casinos, are common sites for suicides.3 Alternatively, fully-operational and professionally-evaluated Robotic Parking Systems, Inc. garage (“RPSG”) technology, since 2002, arguably has eliminated all of these negative safety outcomes, with entry/exit portals that minimize storing and retrieval times (i.e., one to 3 minutes), and lower life-cycle costs (per Federal requirements), 90+% lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, better return on investment (ROI), lower total garage height and footprint for the same number of spaces, and zero visual blight vs. most CCRG façades. 4 RPS has surveyed hundreds of architects and developers from around the world. One of the questions we asked was “What sort of opportunities does automated/robotic parking create?” Fifty-two percent (52%) of those surveyed said it frees up space for design aspects and development and 38% said it provided more parking for when there is limited space. The question becomes, “What is holding architects back from proposing the well-vetted RPS technology?”5 An ever-increasing number of court decisions over the past 26 years have adopted the 1998 well-reasoned “Reasonable Alternative Design” legal standard/test that RPS believes will begin to hold governmental bodies, architects, and owners of CCRGs that approve CCRGs (or have approved since 2002) for deaths and injuries in CCRGs when they could have designed, approved, and/or built RPSGs instead of CCRGs. Further, new ( i.e., August 2, 2016) clear, bipartisan-backed White House Office of Environmental Quality (“OEQ”) greenhouse gas (“GHG”) guidance for Federal agency project design and construction approvals added another major imprimatur for moving forward with infrastructure projects that enhance a safer “human environment.”6 These “force multiplier” developments make the undeniable case that RPS technology forcefully shifts the paradigm (“parkadigm”?) of legal opinion and policy decision-making as to the type of parking garages that must built for the good of the environment and humanity. The evidence could not be clearer as to how to proceed. Any policymaker who has been wavering or unaware of the science or of the past and new Federal mandates or guidance will now have the incontestable legal and scientific support to do what must be done to protect the health and safety of Earth’s inhabitants and the environment in which we all coexist. To do less would be to forego policymakers’ sworn obligations to those who elected or appointed them. For professionals, it would be to not keep updated on proven, current technology and professional practice, such as an architect’s, planner’s, or attorney’s continuing education requirements. Summarized here and elaborated herein are RPS’s key legal and policy justifications in support of RPS garage design: 

Eliminates sexual assaults: 20%-30% occur in traditional parking garages, parking lots, and public areas – one every three (3) minutes in the U.S.!7 Our society also has failed to hold more than one percent (1%) of accused rapists accountable through the criminal justice system or prompt rape kit testing, leaving 30%-50% of victims to suffer with

1

http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=44; https://www.rainn.org/statistics

2

http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_green_parking.htm.

3

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21916292; http://casinowatch.org/suicides/suicides.html.

4

www.roboticparking.com; http://www.roboticparking.com/news/newsletter/ParkSmart_issue_34.pdf; 5 Id. 6 7

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/nepa_final_ghg_guidance.pdf

http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/03/suicide_prevention_bills_introduced_named_for_alle.html; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21916292; http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/lancaster-parking-authority-ponders-rash-of-suicides-at-garage/article_46212aac-f3ed-11e3-b412-001a4bcf6878.html **Business Development Counsel, Robotic Parking Systems, Inc. Clearwater, Florida; J.D., George Mason University School of Law. B.S.; The Florida State University; Managing Partner, Global Health and Education | Law + Policy, LLC., Washington, D.C. and Virginia.  2016 | http://www.copyrighted.com/copyrights/view/ltmb-iwz4-yg0e-c6jx

   







PTSD for their remaining lifetimes. 8 “About 65 percent of rapes and sexual assaults are never reported in this country,” according to a 2012 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 9 highlighted recently by Petula Dvorak in The Washington Post, discussing the continued failure of Baltimore police to test rape kits and a 2010 Baltimore Sun investigation that found that police “dismissed rape and sexual assault charges at alarming rates by systematically shaming victims, abusing, belittling and aggressively questioning them until they went away.” 10 Parking lots are common sites for rapes, such as a new report from Florida State University. “Noticeably, it wasn’t parking garages where the rapes were reported, but in parking lots that are open and visible to bystanders.” 11 Parking expansion plans should require only robotic garages designs since they are eminently safer than CCRGs or parking lots, and limit internal access only to vehicles. [pp.5-6] Eliminates access for suicides: CCRG garages are common sites for suicides, particularly at hospitals and casinos.12 Robotic garages prevent the opportunity for suicides. Robotic Parking Systems garages are more seismically tolerant than CCRGs: Due to the ridged, but flexible, steel infrastructure of RPSGs, they can withstand more vibration from earthquakes than CCRGs. CCRGs expose patrons to garage collapses. RPSGs only have vehicles inside – no humans. Electric Car Charging and Autonomous Technology: RPS can provide for electric car charging, links to traffic finding tools and applications, as well as parking reservation software that are in place today. Further, autonomous driving vehicles will be accepted easily in our RPS garages. DeafSpace Design Guidelines and DeafSpace Architecture: RPS believes that its parking garage technology best complies with the concept of the DeafSpace Guidelines that were developed by Gallaudet University in coordination with DangermondKeane Architecture. Since patrons exit (and retrieve) their vehicles at the entry/exit portals, there is no walking to and from their vehicles as in a traditional garage, with their many structural, visual, auditory, and lighting shortcomings.13 Key Life- and Cost-Saving Infrastructure Projects, such as RPS Parking Garages, are a Priority: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Lawrence Summers, echoes RPS’ position that key infrastructure projects should have “requirements that … undergo [life-cycle] cost-benefit analysis,” and that a “major infrastructure investment program should be adopted by the President and Congress in the spring of 2017. 14 Because building new RPS garages instead of the traditional CCRG can be done at a net lower life-cycle cost [in dollars], not to mention the saving of lives, injuries, and property theft and damage, 90+% reduction in GHGs, increased aesthetics, smaller footprint and height, any added infrastructure investment/cost argument against RPSG preference falls flat. [pp.5-6] Products Liability and Premises Liability: Recent court judgments 15 suggest future liability for CCRG owners, developers, governments, planners, and architects for injuries or deaths in CCRGs for not adopting safer, total life-cycle costcomparable “Reasonable Alternative Design” (“RAD”) parking garages.16 RPS opened the first fully automatic parking garage in Hoboken, NJ in 2002 and had its 99.999% reliability independently and professionally validated it in 2004.17 [pp. 23-25] Greenhouse Gas (“GHG”) Reduction by 95%: White House Office of Environmental Quality (OEQ) Final Guidance on GHG Mitigation in Federal project design and life-cycle cost operations. [8/2/2106]18 RPS design allows only about 5% of the GHGs emitted by comparable parking space CCRGs, plus, at less life cycle cost, provides optimal safety, functionality, reliability, better aesthetics, 100% handicapped spaces, smaller footprint, and lower height vis-à-vis CCRGs,19 a key imperative in cities like Washington, D.C. [pp. 15-18]

8

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071107; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24930620 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/vnrp0610pr.cfm; 10 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/marylands-untested-rape-kits-baltimores-sex-assault-investigations-are-shameful/2016/08/25/b4299f7c-6adb-11e6-99bff0cf3a6449a6_story.html 11 http://thetab.com/us/floridastate/2016/12/02/half-of-reported-rapes-at-fsu-occur-at-frats-new-map-shows-5348 12 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21916292; http://casinowatch.org/suicides/suicides.html. 13 http://www.gallaudet.edu/campus-design/deafspace.html;www.dangermondkeane.com; http://www.usgbc.org/articles/leed-and-deafspace-designingcommunity-architecture; http://www.aia.org/aiaucmp/groups/aia/documents/pdf/aiab094934.pdf 14 https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Larry+Summers+Infrastructure&qpvt=larry+summers+infrastructure&FORM=EWRE; , 15 http://tacoma.legalexaminer.com/miscellaneous/slip-and-fall-cases-in-parking-garages/ 16 Branham v. Ford Motor Co., 390 S.C. 203; Branham v. Ford Motor Co., 390 S.C. 203; Hernandez v. Tokai Corp., 2 S.W.3d;http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=nlj 17 http://www.roboticparking.com/reports/Automated_Parking_2_Year_Report_Card.pdf 18 https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/nepa_final_ghg_guidance.pdf 19 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_going_green.htm; http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_green_parking.htm 9

Page 2 of 29





 





“Value Engineering” (“VE”) and “Life-Cycle Costs: RPS is convinced that its garage technology fully comports with the Federally-mandated (i.e., OMB, GSA, VA, DoD, DHS, DOJ/FBI, DOT/FTA). VE protocols that require full and documented consideration of “alternative design” solutions to “optimize the expected cost/worth ratio” of projects at completion for the purpose of achieving “essential functions at the lowest life cycle costs consistent with required performance, quality, reliability, and safety." 20 All agency decision-makers and VE consultants should be required to sign their names to their recommendations and justify if VE analysis. RPS believes its technology achieves a perfect score on all elements identified by GSA21 and industry, such as GE, throughout the U.S., and the European Community.22 Isn’t one of the “essential functions” of a parking garage design and operation to attempt to guarantee a patron the ability to store and retrieve a vehicle as quickly, safely, and cost-effectively as possible, without the fear, threat, or potential for injury or death? 23 All our spaces are handicapped-accessible. [pp.9-15] “Root Cause Analysis” is a method of problem solving used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems.24 RPS asserts that factors, such as CCRG building design and operation, are root causes of CCRG sexual assault, suicide, theft, excessive greenhouse gases, and excessive and costly life-cycle maintenance. However, if the RPSG design were employed, the root causes of these negative outcomes created by CCRG design and operation would remove the problem-fault-sequence, preventing final undesirable events (e.g., rape, suicide, theft, greenhouse gases) from occurring or recurring. “CPTED” Department of Justice-funded and endorsed “Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.”25 RPS believes its patented and proven-in-practice design best fulfills CPTED criteria of any and all parking garage designs. CPTED and premises security 26 expert, Randy Atlas, Ph.D., AIA, termed this White Paper “compelling.” 27 [p. 20] “Disruptive Innovation” or “Disruptive Technology” “A disruptive innovation[/technology] is an innovation [/technology] that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market leaders and alliances.” The term was defined and phenomenon analyzed by Clayton M. Christensen beginning in 1995. More recent sources also include ‘significant societal impact’ as an aspect of disruptive innovation.”28 RPS believes its technology clearly fits both aspects perfectly. “First-in-Class” vs. “Best-in-Class” Descriptor for RPS Garage Technology? Although predominantly or historically only used to describe drugs and biologics, these descriptors are apt for RPS parking garage technology based on its overarching, paradigm-shifting, and target-based solution to the previously insoluble, essential, and functional needs for optimal parking, safety, cost, space, aesthetics, and near elimination of GHGs. 29 DOT “Accelerated Innovation Deployment Demonstration” Grant Opportunity: Effective September 1, 2016, a renewed funding opportunity, authorized within the Technology and Innovation Deployment Program under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (“FAST”) Act, provides “incentive funding” for “any phase of a highway transportation project planning and project delivery including: [p]lanning, financing, operation, structures, materials, pavements, environment, and construction that address the TIDP goals.” Up to $1 million per project, at 80% Federal share can be funded. The program’s goals include funding that will “[significantly accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies” … to “provide leadership and incentives to demonstrate state-of-the-art technologies … elevated performance standards … and improved quality and user satisfaction.”30 RPS believes that its technology is a perfect fit

20

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1996. PUBLIC LAW 104–106—FEB. 10, 1996. https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/project-management-oversight-pmo; https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FTA_Project_and_Construction_Mgmt_Guidelines_2016.pdf; https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FINAL_FTA_QMS__Guidelines_December_2012.pdf; https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/value-engineering-ve-transit-projects https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title41/html/USCODE2009-title41-chap7-sec432.htm; http://www.ideationtriz.com/paper_Integrating_TRIZ.asp 21 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/101697; http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Value_engineering_in_building_design_and_construction; http://www.value-engineering.com/federal.htm 22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_engineering; http://www.batson-cook.com/services/value_engineering/#.Vz9zI4-cFYM 23 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/category/21589 24 http://www.brighthubpm.com/monitoring-projects/67628-written-root-cause-analysis-example/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cause 25 21st century security and CPTED: designing for critical infrastructure and crime prevention / edited by Randall I. Atlas. (2013). (2nd ed.) http://www.fta.dot.gov/newsroom/13731.html (2d ed.). 26 https://www.crcpress.com/authors/i913-randall-i-atlas 27 Email from Randall I. Atlas, Ph.D., AIA, to Roger C. Courtney, Esq. Available upon request. 28 http://theemergingfuture.com/disruptive-technology.htm; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation 29 The discovery of first-in-class drugs: origins and evolution. Jörg Eder, Richard Sedrani & Christian Wiesmann. p577 | doi:10.1038/nrd4336; http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v13/n8/full/nrd4336.html 30 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/09/01/2016-21063/notice-of-funding-opportunity-for-accelerated-innovation-deployment-demonstration

Page 3 of 29





 



     

31

for Federal authorities to validate RPS’ known and proven benefits across all aspects of a better and safer parking experience. [pp. 19-20] DOT/FHWA/Transportation Pooled Fund Program: allows State departments of transportation (DOTs) and the Federal Highway Administration to “create synergy – by leveraging research, avoiding duplication of effort, and joining forces on planning and research projects of mutual interest.” RPS believes that no State DOT or the Federal DOT has ever done the type of research or analysis on RPS technology that it is due despite the myriad of documented safety, environment, and net life-cycle cost benefits that RPS technology has demonstrated in the U.S., Dubai, and Kuwait. RPS is willing to join with State DOTs and/or FHWA to volunteer funds and resources to conduct research, planning or technology transfer activity and also seek university and municipality participation. [pp. 18-19] “Force Multiplier” 31 RPS garages increase the efficiency and stunningly and inexorably enhance the safety of parking structure design by eliminating internal access of patrons and criminals due to its closed envelope characteristics, without increasing the up-front cost of the structure in most cases. It can save in land (i.e., footprint) costs over a CCRG. Such RPS design, in and of itself, is a key force multiplier. In all applications, RPS calculates that its parking garages will be less expensive when total life cycle costs are evaluated using Value Engineering, which is required in all Federal contracts and many state contracts, although most, if not all, Federal officials, to RPS’ knowledge, have blown off this requirement regarding parking garage design. As previously noted, below grade RPSG parking spaces cost the same or less than above grade CCRG parking spaces and eliminates the crime potential endemic in CCRG design either above or below grade.32 “Costs of Crime to Society”: A 2010 NIH-supported research study on the costs of crime to society unequivocally demonstrates how CCRG parking garage design decisions by government, developers, architects, and planners are costing victims, next of kin, and taxpayer’s lives and/or inordinate pain and unnecessary expenditures. 33 [p. 25] RPSG Façades Eliminate Visual Blight: Customizable RPSG façades can match surrounding buildings. Therefore, there is no need to even try to camouflage a CCRG by putting “lipstick on a pig.” 34 Even with the most awesome CCRG façade, the risks of assault, suicide, and property loss exist. Why not work with RPS and apply the same stellar façade of the adjoining building and benefit from the professionally safer RPSG? [pp. 10,14,18,20,27] “Sustainable” Design: Much is claimed by architects and designers, but what sustainability goal is more important than life itself, not to mention freedom from injury and long-term psychological suffering (e.g., PTSD), death, and suicide, if not, arguably, the safest parking garage technology? RPS asserts that all initial parking garage and parking lot planning must include CPTED, RAD, OEQ, GHG, and VE review.35 Environmental Winner: Reduces CO2, CO, NOx by 90+%, brake dust, and carbon footprint. 36 LEED – An RPSG can add 10 to 17 points and four extra “Innovation of Design” points. 37 [p. 28] Lower total development costs and cost-per-space than CCRGs (i.e., 50% less below grade)38 [pp. 19,26] 100% Handicapped Spaces with RPSG design – Since all vehicle occupants disembark at the entry portal, which can be mere feet from the building entrance, safety and convenience are optimized. RPSG design is no match for any CCRG designs, especially at hospitals, VA facilities, and senior citizen centers. [pp. 15,18,19] Greater Return on Investment (ROI). Engineering study: 55% less life cycle maintenance costs. 39 [p. 19] The McKinsey Global Institute has estimated a 20 percent rate of return on infrastructure projects. 40 [pp. 15, 18,19,] Accelerated Depreciation: 5 years for robotic machinery vs. 39 years for CCRGs.41

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2011-03-25/force-multipliers; http://www.roboticparking.com/news/newsletter/ParkSmart_issue_34.pdf

32 https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/2013/02/14/the_economic_trickledown_effect_of_construction_industry.html 33

https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/2013/02/14/the_economic_trickledown_effect_of_construction_industry.html; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071107; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835847/. 34 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_flexible_facade.htm https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/miami-has-designer-everything-else-why-not-parking-garages/2016/05/12/63ed406c-0358-11e6-b823-707c79ce3504_story.html 35 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/104462 36 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_green_parking.htm; http://www.greenparkingcouncil.org/featured/first-certified-green-garages/ 37 http://www.usgbc.org/LEED/; http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_going_green.htm 38 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_increase_revenue.htm; Schwartz, P.E., Samuel I. The Garage of the Future Must Be Green, Parking, March 2009; https://parkithere.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/comparison-of-operating-costs-of-conventional-vs-automated-parking-garage/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uapA9DQ03KI 39 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_increase_revenue.htm 40 https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Larry+Summers+Infrastructure&qpvt=larry+summers+infrastructure&FORM=EWRE; , http://www.globalinfrastructureinitiative.com/ ; http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-infrastructure/our-insights 41 https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/a-brief-overview-of-depreciation

Page 4 of 29

   

 

    



More Parking Spaces by Volume - Robotic design allows two to 3.4 times as many vehicles to be stored in same volume as CCRG, or same number in 50%-70% height/volume, allowing more saleable/leasable space. RPSG designs can free up ground square feet for recreational or other uses.42 [pp. 6-7] Documented Reliability: 99.999% uptime performance over 7 to 10 years in operation. 43 [pp. 18-19] Lower Insurance Costs: A. M. Best underwriter review. Study: “insurance company’s dream.” 44 [pp. 11,16,22,26] RPSG Mandate and Sole Source Justified. Federal, State, and local governments and planners should mandate RFP terms and reiterate VE mandate to ensure both RPSG and CCRG design comparison and evaluation. Let the safer/safest and most cost-reasonable design that has lower life-cycle maintenance costs be objectively compared side-by-side with the status quo CCRG.45 Sole source contracts for RPSGs can be justified. 46 [p. 11] RPS urges a National Parking Garage Inventory and required routine Professional Engineer inspections, such as the 2016 New York State bill by NY Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo 47 and awaiting Gov. Cuomo’s signature. [p. 27] Most decision-makers lack RPSG knowledge and virtues. RPS, from experience, believes that most planners, architects, developers, and parking garage consultants do not have the requisite level of experience in assessing proven robotic parking garage costs, CPTED, safety, and suitability when contracting with communities and others. Some consultants openly avoid assessing or recommending RPS technology. RPS believes there may be conflicts of interest due to revolving door ties or campaign contributions from CCRG construction firms that impede the consideration, adoption, review, or approval of RPSGs, despite actual knowledge of RPS technology, but use of RPS design illustrations!48 [pp. 19-20, 25] Optional front-end security portal scans for plastic and other explosives, firearms, and bodies, such as for courthouses and federal and state buildings.49 Less expensive new technology that can detect trace explosives from a distance could further ensure protection from dangerous vehicles entering any garage. 50 [p. 28] Stellar customer and architect satisfaction with quick retrieval time, personal and vehicle security, superb uptime performance, and consistent architecture with surrounding buildings. 51 [pp. 10,187] RPS design is consistent with federal preference to support safer technology in transit decisions. 52 More Flexible Use of Land by RPSGs: One of the most important positive impacts on urban fabric: Because RPSGs consume up to 70% less footprint, it now allows for RPS garage development on land that is not possible with CCRGs, as such more convenient parking can be provided in areas that are plagued with parking shortages.53 [p. 6] Traffic Congestion Costs and Loss of GDP and Wasted Time: A 1999 DOT/MIT Volpe Institute report “estimates that as many as half of all automobiles on the street are simply cruising in search of vacant on-street spaces.”54 as does another, reporting 15% to 45% doing the same in New York City.55 Also, that the high-speed, efficient automated parking system ensures faster retrieval times for clients. 56 An IBM Global Business Services report stated that congestion costs up to 4% of GDP and went on to say that, “[i]n the U.S., congestion in urban areas results in annual costs of 4.2 billion hours of wasted time and $87 Billion from wasted fuel and lost productivity.”57 RPS’ “Correct the Record” Response to Criticism of Its First U.S. RPS Garage (Hoboken, NJ) in 2002: An objective report by journalist Jeff Faria of the circumstances that precipitated and led to the then-Hoboken City Councilapproved takeover by Unitronics of RPS’ “first in the nation” robotic garage in Hoboken after the first three years of

42

http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_create_space.htm; https://parkithere.wordpress.com/tag/automated-parking-garage/page/4/ https://www.facebook.com/RoboticParking/photos/a.10150669709659164.402958.367117274163/10151099641899164/?type=1&theater 43 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_redundancy.htm; 44 http://roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_reduce_liability.htm 45 http://www.ofm.wa.gov/contracts_procurements/K1799-SoleSourceAnnouncement(10.30.2015).pdf; http://virginiadot.org/business/resources/const/_Project_Spec_Guide.pdf; http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/cqit/vecp.cfm 46 https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/third-party-procurement/justifying-sole-source-procurements 47 https://legiscan.com/NY/bill/A09614/2015; http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/2016/01/07/lupardo-calls-measures-protect-parking-public/78396914/ 48 A copy of the Walker study is available upon request. http://theridgewoodblog.net/questions-arise-on-the-new-walker-report-for-ridgewood-parking-garage/ 49 http://roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_add_on_products.htm 50 http://www.sds.l-3com.com/etd/opt-ex.htm; http://www.securityinfowatch.com/press_release/10577888/ge-securitys-vaportracer-explosives-detection-deviceto-be-on-display-at-ausa-expo; http://www.ge.com/files/usa/company/investor/downloads/ge_rail_detection_050404.pdf 51 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_projects_hoboken.htm; http://www.roboticparking.com/reports/Automated_Parking_2_Year_Report_Card.pdf 52 http://www.trb.org/AP020P020.aspx; 53 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_create_space.htm 54 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_green_parking.htm; www.roboticparking.com/news/newsletter/ParkSmart_issue_28.pdf. Original ULI article available upon request; 55 Id. 56 Id. 57 Id.

Page 5 of 29

stellar uptime operational efficiency (i.e., 99.999%+) should finally dispel any notion that RPS’ paradigm-shifting Hoboken RPSG was nothing short of a consistent and stellar performer when managed by RPS. 58 Such reliability and performance led to our two Dubai and 2016 Kuwait RPS garages. Conventional Concrete Ramp Garage Sexual Assaults: U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) statistics from 2004-2008 show that there were over 400,000 reported violent victimizations annually [i.e., 550/day] in parking lots and [CCRG] garages, collectively, and over 2 million reported property victimizations per year during that same period. DOJ statistics show that there was an average of over 223,000 reported sexual assaults in 2004 across all parking lots, public areas, and CCRG garages.59 Other sources state that 25%-30% of rapes and sexual assaults take place in CCRG parking garages, parking lots, and public areas.60 That level of incidence translated into between 55,000 and 70,000 reported sexual assaults in U.S. CCRGs and public places in 2004, or between 150 to 250 per day nationwide! The published research shows a consensus that only one third of all rapes are reported. Assuming that figure is borne out, there actually are approximately 450 to 600 CCRG, parking lot, and public area rapes or sexual assaults per day in the U.S. That conclusion suggests that there likely 20-30 sexual assaults every hour or one every 2 to 3 minutes in a U.S. CCRG, parking lot, or public area, with 63% occurring at night. Suicides Due to Conventional Concrete Ramp Garage Design – Eliminated with RPS Robotic Design: Each year, more than one million Americans (3,000 per day) attempt suicide, and over 30,000 succeed, at a rate of about 90 per day, including 22 per day for veterans!61 “Some of the most widely-used venues for suicides are parking garages. Especially vulnerable to such suicide attempts are the parking structures of hospitals, they report, because it has been found that most persons who jump to their death had been previously treated for a mental health condition.” 62 Other popular venues are universities and casino garages. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that suicide is the second leading cause of death among college-age students, which often occur in high, open-air parking garages.63 Sadly, even current casino owners and developers who are building new casinos with parking garages are still opting to continue building CCRGs, despite readily searchable RPS internet presence, openly reported crime, suicides, extreme customer dissatisfaction, and the like in their current garages, despite ridiculously long human valet retrieval time in their CCRGs. 64 RPS Garages Should be a Key Federal and State Infrastructure Initiative: Another key voice in the discussion about the justification of massive infrastructure spending was made by Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and Professor and Past President of Harvard University in an op-ed in The Washington Post, September 12, 2016. As Professor Summers noted, “[m]inimizing cost should be the central objective of infrastructure procurement.” 65 Throughout this White Paper, I articulate the net life-cycle structural and maintenance cost savings relative to RPSGs vis-à-vis CCRGS, independent of the additional significant societal and other collateral benefits, such as lives saved, through the singular construction of all new parking garages using RPS technology. Secretary Summers opined about the “profound questions about America’s future [that] are raised about collapsing bridges.” What about collapsing parking garages and the rapes, suicides endemic in CCRGs? He also noted that “[t]he issue is not whether the United States should invest more in infrastructure but what the policy framework should be.” (emphasis added). Furthermore, in discussing what role the private sector should or might play, he stated that “[t]here is a case for experimenting with approaches that could mobilize private capital for use on infrastructure that has been a public-sector preserve, such as airports and roads.” I would add parking garages, which are the so-called “last mile” in our transportation networks. RPS is willing to consider partnering in this way to show Federal, State, local, and private sector entities that RPS can prove that its parking garage technology is superior to any CCRG or other so-called automatic or robotic parking garage technology. Also highlighted in Secretary Summers’ op-ed was the McKinsey Global Institute’s estimate of a 20% rate of return on infrastructure projects. He alluded to “legitimate skepticism about the quality of infrastructure investments” and that there is 58

http://www.roboticparking.com/pdfs/hoboken/916-Garden-Report.pdf; www.roboticparking.com/robotic-parking-and-hoboken.htm; http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=jeff+Faria+robotic&d=4780785499833254&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=-3_-hxmR9px-DJiwYWgdfvVXZdX98i7B; 59 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv13.pdf 60 http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=44 61 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51642315_Suicide_and_the_parking_garage 62 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21916292 63 http://www.parking.org/2016/05/12/suicide-parking-facilities-prevention-response-recovery/ 64 http://casinowatch.org/suicides/suicides.html; 65 https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=Larry+Summers+Infrastructure&qpvt=larry+summers+infrastructure&FORM=EWRE; , http://www.globalinfrastructureinitiative.com/ ; http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-infrastructure/our-insights

Page 6 of 29

“no silver bullet for this problem” and that “transparency of the type adopted for the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program should become the norm.” RPS is fully on board with that proposed imperative and believes this White Paper sets out the many ways in which such transparency can be assured. 66 RPS is delving into the McKinsey reports and the August 2016 article, “Sending the Right Infrastructure Message,” 67 by Christopher Heathcote, CEO of the Global Infrastructure Hub, a G-20 initiative [that includes the U.S.], the goal of which is to increase the quality and quantity of global infrastructure projects. However, as an example, I believe that the following passage, is instructive: “Lack of capital is not the issue: $106 trillion of institutional capital is available [globally], in the form of pension and sovereign-wealth funds. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that only 1.6 percent of this is directed to infrastructure. According to research from the Global Infrastructure Hub, 69 percent of institutional-investor funds want to increase allocations to the sector; there is particular interest in emerging markets. “What these funds need is a way to do this. The essential precursor to significant engagement with the private sector is political commitment. By providing leadership, defining a strategy, and creating effective planning and implementation agencies, governments can create the conditions that will encourage the private sector to invest in infrastructure markets. That, in turn, can help countries build the road, sanitation, and transport projects that fuel economic growth—and improve the well-being of people and communities around the world.”68

In a September 12, 2016 Bloomberg.com article, “The Great Debate: Can Technology Transform the Economy Again,”69 by Scott Lanman and Daniel Moss, comments from two leading economists, Robert Gordon of Northeastern University and Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT, are cited from a Bloomberg Benchmark podcast, on opposite sides of the debate. Brynjolfsson stated his concern “that the political system won’t do its part to make sure that the [U.S.] can benefit from the rush of innovation.” Gordon opined that “it’s the lack of really profound, economy-wide impacting innovation in the past few years that’s been the problem.” Bjonjolfsson, commenting that the U.S. is once again in a period of “secular stagnation,” and stating that while he is “pretty optimistic” because he sees “such amazing technologies in the pipeline,” he is “concerned because it’s not automatic that those technologies are going to benefit everyone or benefit people more broadly.” He also states that in order to get a full sense of what is possible, “[i]t comes from going out and visiting companies.” Well, please come to Clearwater, Dubai, and Kuwait and see what RPS has been doing for the past 15 years as to what “profound” innovation is all about and how RPS technology affords “automatic” societal gains in life-cycle cost benefits, life and injury savings, and GHG reduction, that RPS has done since 2002.70 The question for the U.S. is whether the President and the Congress will join with the private sector and other nations in making such political commitment now and going forward in 2017 and beyond. RPS urgently wants to contribute to the debate. Size Matters: More Parking Spaces by Volume or 2 to 3 Times the Vehicles in the Same Space: RPS robotic parking garage design allows two to 3.4 times as many vehicles to be stored in the same volume as a CCRG, or same number in 50%-70% of CCRG height/volume, allowing more saleable/leasable space. RPSG’s more compact designs can free up ground square

66

Id. http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-infrastructure/our-insights/sending-the-right-infrastructure-message 68 Id. 69 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-12/the-great-debate-can-technology-transform-the-economy-again 70 Id. 67

Page 7 of 29

feet for recreational or other uses. The cutaway view, above, of our current project in Kuwait is a perfect illustration of the space saved with an RPS garage vis-à-vis a conventional concrete ramp garage (CCRG All of the cubic feet of the robotic portion is used for storing vehicles instead of being wasted on ramps, drive aisles, larger spaces to accommodate open doors, and extra height for people. The footprint of the facility is 328 feet by 168 feet. Peak traffic (“PT”) throughout this Robotic Parking system is about 450 cars per hour delivered through the 12 grade-level reversible entry/exit bays that service the garage. Translated, this garage has the capacity to deliver 7.5 cars each and every minute! The garage is scheduled to open in late 2016 and will set a new record for “the largest automatic parking facility in the world” – the second such record for RPS.71 To stay up to date, go to the RPS Park It Here blog 72 or “like” RPS on Facebook.73 A White House Policy document, “Housing Development Toolkit,” released September 26, 2016, states that “[minimum p]arking requirements generally imposed an undue burden on housing development, particularly for transit-oriented or affordable housing.” While RPS agrees with the need to adjust parking space size and capacity in multi-family residences and buildings based on projected personal needs and require separate payment to own or rent a parking space, the White House document (and those of cities with similar concern) do not comment on the still-relevant safety and environmental shortcomings relevant to conventional concrete ramp garages (“CCRGs”). 74 RPS garages require between 30% and 50% of the volume of CCRGs, allowing more density and less height as CCRGs, as well as eliminating assault and theft occurrences that exist with CCRGs. New electronic scanners that can override car security systems are no match for vehicles parked inside access-protected RPS garages. RPS’ “Correct the Record” Response to Criticism of Its First U.S. RPS Garage (Hoboken, NJ) in 2002: There have been considerable published articles that have criticized RPS for the development, installation, and operation of the first fully automatic robotic parking garage in the U.S., which RPS built and operated successfully from its inception in 2002 until 2006 with only three mishaps out of 700,000 in/out operations, all three of which were due to its initial software design, which were corrected immediately, with no personal injuries. Proven vehicle retrieval times from an RPSG exit portal are 1.2 to 2.5 minutes.75 Here are comments from patrons at the Hoboken garage when RPS managed it. 76 An analysis and study in Parking Magazine by Samuel I. Schwartz, a renowned PE, clearly proved such allegations and reports totally false. 77 Equally disturbing and costly to the taxpayers of the City of Hoboken, RPS, and others was the then-City-approved takeover of the garage operation by the then-Hoboken City Council, which resulted in convictions of the then-mayor and then-parking manager, and the installation, after about 18 months of down-time (and $1.8 million extra local funding), of a competitor’s software system (versus a promised 14-day turnaround), that has at least tripled retrieval time and reduced capacity from 304 spaces to about 160 and operates each month at a loss (versus RPS generating profits for the city). 78 An objective discussion of the circumstances that precipitated and allowed the then-Hoboken City Council-approved takeover by Unitronics of RPS’ “first in the nation” robotic garage in Hoboken after the first three years of stellar uptime operational efficiency, written by Jeff Faria, a well-respected journalist who objectively ferrets out all aspects of this case

71

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-automated-parking-facility; http://www.roboticparking.com/news/rps_in_the_news/GuinnessWorld-Record-Largest-Automated-Parking-Facility.htm 72 https://ParkItHere.wordpress.com/ 73 https://www.facebook.com/RoboticParking/photos/a.10150669709659164.402958.367117274163/10151099641899164/?type=1&theater 74 “Bending the Cost Curve – Solutions to Expand the Supply of Affordable Rentals.” Urban Land Institute Terwilliger Center for Housing: 19. 2014; “Parking.” Association of Bay Area Governments, N.d.; “Parking Review: Report to Council PLUS Committee.” City of Seattle. 13 April 2015; "Chapter 40 R." Housing and Economic Development. Massachusetts Housing and Urban Development, N.d.; Olivo, Antonio. "Fairfax Supervisors Give Final Approval for Higher-density Zoning Rules." The Washington Post, 22 June 2016; Kelleher, Susan. “Seattle’s micro-housing boom offers an affordable alternative.” Seattle Times. 75 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_projects_hoboken.htm; http://www.roboticparking.com/reports/Automated_Parking_2_Year_Report_Card.pdf) 76 http://roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_what_others_say.htm; 77 http://www.roboticparking.com/reports/Automated_Parking_2_Year_Report_Card.pdf); 78 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic-parking-and-hoboken.htm; Schwartz, P.E., Samuel I. The Garage of the Future Must Be Green, Parking, March 2009.

Page 8 of 29

(and other similar types of cases),79 clearly and finally has dispelled any notion that RPS’ paradigm-shifting Hoboken RPSG was nothing short of a consistent and stellar performer when managed by RPS. By documenting all of the unique attributes of RPS garages and the fact that many governments, architects, planners, and developers could (and should) have approved or built a RAD RPSG, RPS believes that the level of damages should be higher and more appropriate when a CCRG nonetheless was approved and built with the actual or imputed knowledge of a RAD RPSG. Despite RPS’ almost daily awareness of what its believes is preventable crime in CCRG through Google Alerts, RPS hopes that public attention and anticipated future court holdings will reach a level of official and consumer awareness that will forever change future behavior in designing, approving, and constructing what RPS believes are the safest available parking garages.80 One must also be concerned with the health of CCRG employees, including valets, relative to day in and day out GHG emissions that now must be factored into Federal decision-making in approval of future parking garage construction due to the August 2, 2016 OEQ GHG guidance. No other so-called robotic/automatic garage provider has the proven scalability, multi-year operation, “Peak Traffic” (“PT” or “throughput”) and retrieval capability of RPS, nor do other so-called robotic/automatic garages have our pallet design that ensures that no person or mechanical apparatus ever touches the vehicle. RPS was declared “the pioneer and expert in automat[ic] parking” at the Texas A&M Parking Symposium in March 2002,81 14 years ago. RPS retains that status today. 82 Based on RPS’ independently and professionally verified successful operation of the Hoboken garage from its opening and for three years, RPS was awarded contracts to build two larger (i.e., 764 spaces in 2009 and 1,194 spaces in 2011) garages in Dubai with equivalent performance and reliability metrics to its operation of the Hoboken garage. What was profitable for Hoboken with RPS continues to be a drag on Hoboken’s budget while providing 150 or so fewer spaces. Why are cities and developers even considering anything other the RPS’ stellar technology? RPS’ new garage in Kuwait can pack 3.4 times the vehicles in the same cubic feet as its companion CCRG. The operator of one of RPS’ two Dubai garages has stated in a letter to RPS that “the real measure of success [of a parking garage] comes from [its] users … who are exceptionally pleased with the speed [of retrieval], convenience, and the safety and security for themselves, their cars, and belongings.” 83 RPS Performance Sets the Standard: While there are other “automatic garage” manufacturers in the U.S. and elsewhere that claim meaningful attributes, the facts remain that (1) none has the same long years of exhaustive RPS experience in manufacturing and hands-on 24/7 operation of robotic garages, (2) none has built as many parking spaces as RPS and, 3) as of 2016, none has ever matched or exceeded RPSG peak traffic capacities and 99.999% uptime performance. In fact, no other “automatic parking” product has operated even one month at full capacity of its "proof of concept," even with garages much smaller than RPSGs. See “When Is ‘Robotic Parking’ Not Robotic Parking?”84 Value Engineering (VE): Value engineering had its genesis at General Electric during World War II. Because of the war, there were shortages of skilled labor, raw materials, and component parts. “Thus, ‘value engineering’ began with a creative, team-based approach that allowed the generation of many alternatives that fostered the development/creation of an enhanced functional solution within cost and time constraints. Later in the 20th century, value engineering started to spread across the world. But because of the “differences between the mentality and the [behavior] of American companies [vis-àvis] European companies, value engineering, as developed in the USA, had to undergo some modification,” which led to VE being “applied as a broad, high-order description which encompassed all value techniques, whether applied at a strategic or tactical level.” 85 Although widely used in construction as a purchasing approach to reduce costs, it is now “regaining its stature as a key modern project management technique,” such as “project sustainability, addressing material sustainability ( e.g., life cycle, 79

http://www.roboticparking.com/pdfs/hoboken/916-Garden-Report.pdf; www.roboticparking.com/robotic-parking-and-hoboken.htm; http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=jeff+Faria+robotic&d=4780785499833254&mkt=en- US&setlang=en-US&w=-3_-hxmR9px-DJiwYWgdfvVXZdX98i7B; 80 http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_projects_hoboken.htm 81 http://www.roboticparking.com/downloads/presentations/robotic_parking_systems_benefits.pdf 82 http://www.roboticparking.com/news/rps_in_the_news/Guinness-World-Record-Largest-Automated-Parking-Facility.htm 83 Letter from Asteco Management, Dubai. Available upon request. 84 https://ParkItHere.wordpress.com/ 85 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_engineering

Page 9 of 29

carbon, health and biophilic [i.e., a strong attraction for or emotional attachment to the living world] impacts, … low carbon solutions, … social impact (safety, wellness, local, skills, transport, community impact),”86 and functionality. However, even though various articles have mentioned how value engineering can be useful in designing a safe parking garage,87 RPS has not found any Federal agency or state entity that has employed value engineering in evaluating parking garage projects, despite a 1996 Federal law and regulations in almost every Federal agency. RPS is convinced that if VE had been employed as required by law, robotic parking garages, such as designed and built by RPS, would have received positive reviews and many already now would be in operation in Federal, State, local, and private sector situations across the U.S. and our embassies, having prevented many rapes, suicides, murders, and property theft and damage.

As noted, value engineering is specifically mandated for Federal agencies by section 4306 of the National Defense

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996,88 which amended the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act (41 U.S.C. 401 et seq.): “Each executive agency shall establish and maintain cost-effective value engineering procedures and processes … As used in this section, the term ‘value engineering’ means an analysis of the functions of a program, project, system, product, item of equipment, building, facility, service, or supply of an executive agency, performed by qualified agency or contractor personnel, directed at improving performance, reliability, quality, safety, and life cycle costs .”89 (emphasis added) DoD updated its “INSTRUCTION” [NUMBER 4245.14, October 26, 2012]. 90 Noteworthy are two passages from that document that include reference to “functional requirements”:  

“A Government-only VE program shall be used to eliminate costs and improve value in the development, procurement, acquisition, and life-cycle support of services, materiel, and facilities.” … “Use VE program requirements (VEPRs) to identify opportunities for savings in contracts consistent with the functional requirements of the end item of the contract to include production, support, and service contracts.” (emphasis added)

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in its “CIRCULAR No. A-131 (REVISED),” December 26, 201391 also makes the following key points: 

 

“… provides guidance to support the sustained use of value engineering (VE) by Federal Departments and Agencies to reduce program and acquisition costs, improve performance, enhance quality, and foster the use of innovation and to ensure VE is considered and integrated, as appropriate, into the planning and development of agency programs, projects, activities, as well as contracts for supplies and services, including performance based, architect-engineering, and construction contracts.” “The results of VE may be indicated when best value requires an initial expenditure of funds in order to meet basic functions at a lower cost over the life of the project, program, or systems.” “VE can result in the increased use of innovative materials, technologies or practices, and environmentally-sound and energyefficient practices and materials. For example, the application of VE to facilities construction can yield a better value when the development, design, acquisition, and construction phases of the project are approached in a manner that considers community and environmental commitments and project constraints, and incorporates environmentally-sound and energy-efficient practices and materials.”92 (emphasis added)

Each “Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990” Federal agency (e.g., DoD, DOJ, DOT, VA, EPA, GSA, NSF, OPM) 93 is required each Fiscal Year to report to the OMB by December 31st of each calendar year the FY results of using VE. Net life-cycle cost savings, including a description of the top five projects utilizing VE, must be reported, showing cost savings, cost avoidances, and quality improvements achieved through application of VE.

86

Id. http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/14946/title/4-parking-security-essentials/viewall/true.aspx 88 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1996. PUBLIC LAW 104–106—FEB. 10, 1996. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009title41/html/USCODE-2009-title41-chap7-sec432.htm 89 https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/omb/circulars/a131/a131.html; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/41/1711; https://litigationessentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=220+Government+Contracts%3A+Law%2C+Admin+%26+Proc+20.syn&srctype=smi&srcid=296F&key=5c90fe64ca21149fab7a73e58042dde0 90 http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/424514p.pdf 91 https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/omb/circulars/a131/a131-122013.pdf 92 Id. 93 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Financial_Officers_Act; "Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, section 901". 87

Page 10 of 29

To obtain a fuller sense of OMB’s guidance for all Federal Departments and Agencies, it is worthwhile to read the entire document. If one considers RPS garage safety from assault, suicide, vehicle damage and theft, environmental concerns (e.g., OEQ’s GHG guidance on 8/2/16), lower life-cycle costs, proven track record, and aesthetics before reading the OMB VE guidance document, it should become clear that many lives and costs could have been saved over the last decade if Federal, State, local, and private entities did proper mandated VE analyses that RPS believes would have resulted in many RPS garages being built and the concomitant savings could have been used for many delayed or new infrastructure projects. This does not even begin to address the trauma of injuries and deaths that could been avoided with RPS garages in lieu of CCRGs. SAVE International® is the leading international society devoted to advancing and promoting the value methodology. The process can decrease life cycle costs, increase profits, improve quality, functionality, safety, reliability, and performance as well as enhance customer satisfaction on projects, processes and products. According to its website, “SAVE members are trained and certified in and practice the value methodology in more than 35 countries. Applications can include construction, product design and manufacturing, transportation, health care, government and environmental engineering costs.”94 (emphasis added) A particularly instructive abstract from the Proceedings of the 1978 SAVE International® Conference is one by Stanley C. Drozdal: “Criteria for the Selection of Value Engineering Projects.” The list “represents criteria used in business and [g]overnment for the selection of value engineering in the component and product area, since this is usually the most fruitful area for value engineering.” It would be worthwhile for the reader to review the full list. However, particularly applicable to RPS garage technology, the following stand out: (1) “Items that Appear Ready for Improvement,” (2) “Stateof-the-Art,” (3) “Competitive Position,” (4) “Future Potential,” (5) “Receptive [or Negative] Change Climate,” (6) “Comparative Analysis,” (7) “Cost Per Dimension,” (8) “Reasonable Probability of Success,” (9) “Age of the Product” (e.g., an alternative can take “advantage of technological advances in processes” and “proven advancements in the state-of-theart”), (10) “Unsatisfactory Reports from Consumers,” (11) “Test for Value,” (12) “Items That Lend Themselves to Different Manufacturing Processes,” and (13) “Availability of Data Necessary for an Analysis.” 95 Note that this list of criteria was first created 38 years ago, well before the first RPS garage was opened 14 years ago, in 2002, and is still applicable today! A Georgia DOT’s VE analysis saved over $100 million -- 217 times the cost of VE analysis in FY2010 over 44 projects.96 Clearly, many deferred infrastructure projects and repairs across the country could be completed using such savings from VE and OEQ analysis regarding RPS technology, not to mention lives saved. Shocking for me to hear was the emphatic (but discouraging) statement from a certified VE consultant in Northern Virginia that FTA and UMTA employees, as well as independent architects and contractors, have openly ignored the VE mandate in designing and/or approving Federal projects under their jurisdictions.97 What gall! Is it fear of reprisals? Is it the “old boy network”? My view is that the DOT Inspector General and GAO immediately should investigate and quantify each Federal agency’s use or non-use of VE regarding parking structures since 2002, the first year a U.S RPS garage was built after the 1996 law was enacted. A 2008 summary of State VE requirements prepared by the U.S. Department of Transportation is available. 98 RPS is attempting to get the USDOT to update it. 99 A training PowerPoint from the Florida DOT makes it clear that “[i]t is not cost reduction!!! Value Engineering is the systematic application of function-oriented techniques by a multi-disciplined team to analyze and improve the value of a product, process or service” that is the key reason to do value engineering studies. FTA Circular 4220.1E, Section 7(g) sets forth the imperative for value engineering clauses in construction contracts:

“g. Use of Value Engineering in Construction Contracts:

94

http://www.value-eng.org/ http://www.value-eng.org/knowledge_bank/attachments/Criteria%20for%20Selection%20of%20VE%20Projects.pdf 96 http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2011-06-18/story/georgia-dot-value-engineering-saved-millions; http://www.sas.usace.army.mil/Portals/61/docs/SHEP/Reports/GRR/2%20Value%20Engineering%20Study%20Summary%20Report%20SHEP%20June%202008.pdf 97 To protect his company’s position as a leading VE consulting firm, the VE consultant requested anonymity. 98 http://www.fdot.gov/design/training/designexpo/2014/presentations/KurtLieblongVE2014ExpoPresentation.pdf 99 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ve/; http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/federal-aidessentials/catmod.cfm?id=17; https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and-guidance/valueengineering-ve-transit-projects 95

Page 11 of 29

“Grantees are encouraged to use value engineering clauses in contracts. FTA cannot approve a New Starts grant application for final design funding or a full funding grant agreement until value engineering is complete (see Circular 5010).100 Also, under explicit Federal guidelines, if the VE analysis determines that there is only one product that can properly meet all of the functional or other VE criteria and at a life cycle cost no greater than other “alternative designs,” a sole source contract can be justified for a specific product.101 RPS believes that its parking garage technology justifies the award of sole source contracts for its garages of 100 or more parking spaces and a configuration with at least one right angle and a side of 100 feet (i.e., RPS’ minimum design/configuration parameters). RPS asserts there are no other “reasonable alternative design” automatic/robotic garages or CCRGs that best meet VE criteria as do RPSG designs. (emphasis added)

Additionally, GSA encourages local and state governments, as well as private firms and contractors, to embrace VE requirements as fully as has the Federal government is required to do. RPS could not be any more enthusiastic about such strong Federal mandate to utilize and enforce VE design principles that address social imperatives. RPS believes that all current RFPs, construction permits, architectural proposals, and approved contracts be reevaluated immediately using VE criteria to determine whether current parking garage construction contracts must be modified so that, even with additional upfront design and labor costs, the project would be validated under accepted value engineering methodologies, such as safety, GHGs, and life cycle costs.102 Big ticket projects, like the LaGuardia Airport Terminal Redevelopment Program, should have a Value Engineering requirement, because HAK, a proponent of VE, is a principal architect for the project and there are two parking garages (i.e., 1,100 and 3,130 spaces) included in the redevelopment of LGA. 103 Consistent with RPS’ recommendation is the Federal Transit Administration’s (“FTA’s) Value Engineering Change Proposals (VECP) provision 104 that promotes post-award value engineering proposals by construction contractors during the course of construction. It is described in 23 CFR 627.3(g) 105 as a “construction contract change proposal submitted by the construction contractor based on a VECP provision in the contract.” In the design phase of Federal building development, properly applied value engineering is required to investigate and evaluate “alternative design” solutions to optimize the expected cost/worth ratio of projects at completion. 106 (See also “Reasonable Alternative Design” legal issues, infra). Value engineering elicits ideas on ways of maintaining or enhancing results while reducing life cycle costs. In the construction phase, GSA Public Building Service (“PBS”) “contractors are encouraged through shared savings [ e.g., 55% to the contractor] to draw on their special 'know-how' to propose changes that cut costs while maintaining or enhancing quality, value, [safety], and functional performance.”107 These VE change proposals are encouraged in order to improve the project's function, performance, value and/or quality, while lowering construction costs, or shortening the delivery time, consistent with positive impacts on the project's overall safety, “greenness,” life-cycle costs, and other applicable factors. RPS believes third parties, with independent experience, such as RPS and the Congress, should be encouraged to suggest that a Federal agency request a VECP, even if RPS or another third party denied a contract is willing to fund VE analysis costs. 108 RPS, with the recent groundbreaking for a new CCRG at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center on May 23, 2016, seeks to require the VA, the GSA, and the Congress to mandate VE analysis (or seek a VECP) of this CCRG vis-à-vis the safer RPSG technology and to investigate whether the VA and GSA followed the mandated VE protocol when planning, designing, and issuing contracts and building permits for the Oklahoma City VA CCRG. 109 RPS, on May 16, 2016, wrote to the relevant VA staff in Oklahoma City, but has not received a return call or written reply. 100

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/ConstructionMgt/Pages/ValueEngineering.aspx; http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Design/ValueEngineering https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/third-party-procurement/justifying-sole-source-procurements 102 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2013-title23-vol1/xml/CFR-2013-title23-vol1-sec627-3.xml 103 http://www.haks.net/project.php?mark-sub=mark-sub4&scat_id=19&pro_id=190; http://www.haks.net/bridges.php?scat_id=30&mark-sub=serv-sub; 104 https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/bppm-procurement-object-types-special-considerations 105 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/23/627.3 106 https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/bppm-procurement-object-types-special-considerations, at (§6.1.5). 107 www.gsa.gov/portal/category/21589; http://design.transportation.org/Documents/09-Cowley_Owings.pdf; http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/101197; http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/New_VEPG_Volume_I_R2Q-iK_0Z5RDZ-i34K-pR.pdf; http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/101697 https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/value-engineering-ve-transit-projects; https://www.transit.dot.gov/regulations-and-guidance/ftacirculars/full-funding-grant-agreements-guidance 109 http://www.kswo.com/story/31873211/new-parking-garage-planned-for-okc-va-hospital; http://www.springfieldma.gov/planning/fileadmin/Planning_files/us_GUIDELINES_FOR_FTA_FUNDED_PROCUREMENTS_06042012.pdf; http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/cqit/vecp.cfm. 101

Page 12 of 29

The City-approved 204-space CCRG in Newburyport, MA on page 14, at $11.6 million, with the pictured non-historic $1 million façade, at $57,000 per space, would have the same height of 34 feet for the garage portion as the proposed RPS garage (also on page 14). However, the Newburyport CCRG would require about 10’ of additional height for the daunting corner elevator shaft that would not be required by an RPS garage). In addition, RPS, in a meeting with City employees, informed them that RPS would cover the remaining costs of design rather than require the City to obligate an additional $600,000 in FTA funds for CCRG design work. Furthermore, RPS’ Founder, Inventor, and CEO, Royce Monteverdi, offered the City a $1 million loan at 2% interest as “[RPS’] guarantee for the functioning of [its] system. Mr. Monteverdi stated that RPS would “waive back-payments in case the garage [did] not work to [contract claims and] specifications.” 110 In addition, the Newburyport has contracted with LAZ Parking, which was sued by a rape victim for a sexual assault at a Boston Radisson hotel. Although the jury only held the hotel management and operators liable, the attorney for the case believed that LAZ was “let off the hook” only because the jury wanted to send a strong message to the hotel operator.111 LAZ’s advertising at the time (and as of the date of this White Paper), states that LAZ provides “safe” parking. 112 Has the City of Newburyport done its due diligence in seeking detailed crime statistics from LAZ’ U.S operations and for CCRG parking garages in the vicinity of Newburyport and nationwide? Has the City of Newburyport sought VE, OEQ, and life cycle cost projections from Desman, the architect for the CCRG as required under Federal law, OEQ guidance, and OMB and FTA regulations? What could be more fiscally sound for the City and the FTA? RPS’ fixed price proposal to City of Newburyport provides for an upfront design and construction cost savings in excess of $2.5 million (18.5%) over the approved CCRG design that offers 50% fewer parking spaces, even without counting full life cycle costs, RPSG safety advantages, and RPSG crime reduction cost savings. These are very relevant considerations since City of Newburyport is expecting $5 million in Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (“MVRTA”) funding and $2 million in FTA funding.66 RPS also is seeking Federal Transit Administration (“FTA”) support for it to invoke the mandatory FTA VE analysis provision to compare the CCRG and RPS garage proposals for Newburyport, MA. RPS’ proposed robotic parking garage, in Newburyport, with a 34’ façade, consistent with the historic preservation code of the City of Newburyport, MA, appears as the second graphic below. This particular rendering of the façade of the garage is on a site measuring 199’ x 100’, which his less than the proposed footprint of the Newburyport CCRG, and would accommodate about 313 vehicles above ground at a cost of $11.8 million or $38,000/space. An eight feet shorter, even more visually appealing 26’ RPS version, with one below grade level, would accommodate the same 313 vehicles and would cost $12.2 million (i.e., $400,000 more), or $39,000/space. Either of these RPS’ garage sizes would be even more in keeping with residential neighborhood’s historic architecture and provide additional residential harbor sight lines, a major issue to abutting property owners. What continues to be so exasperating to RPS are statements in the Newburyport planning director’s memorandum to the Newburyport City Council is that the RPS technology needs to have a “greater success rate,” and that the RPS technologies, the U.S.-designed GE motors and software, and MA-based Stratus Technologies “do not have a “proven record.” What is better than a 99.999% uptime efficiency performance and safety records that effectively are beyond measure and 50% (i.e., 109) more spaces for the same or less cost to the City? 113 Because this issue is of such importance to RPS in terms of how this and future projects must rely of sound science, objective evaluation of documented reliability and success rates of innovative technologies, RPS urges readers to review specifically these citations that are included in the broad reference at Footnote 98, above).114

110

http://www.cityofnewburyport.com/planning-development/pages/newburyport-intermodal-transit-facility-parking-garage http://www.innercircle.org/News/1284746/AtlantaLawyerWins66MVerdictinBostonRapeCase; 21st Century Security and CPTED: Designing for Critical Infrastructure and Crime Prevention / edited by Randall I. Atlas. 112-115. (2013). 112 https://www.lazparking.com/our-company/solutions/management 113 http://www.cityofnewburyport.com/planning-development/news/parking-garageintermodal-facility-project-information 114 http://www.cityofnewburyport.com/sites/newburyportma/files/file/file/14-robotic-parking-systems-proposal.pdf; http://www.cityofnewburyport.com/sites/newburyportma/files/file/file/memo-opd-to-council-parking-garage-update-2-18-2016-final.pdf. 111

Page 13 of 29

RPS does not believe that FTA has conducted the required VE analysis of the Newburyport garage project, even though FTA has committed $2 million in funding. In neighboring Springfield, MA, there is specific guidance for VE analysis. 115 Why not in Newburyport? It is apparent to RPS that the Newburyport planning director, the Merrimack Valley Regional Transportation Authority, and the FTA itself disregarded the VE requirement. It should be noted that a 1994 General Accounting Office study of potential VE benefits to Urban Mass Transit Administration contracts validated VE analysis.116 As stated before, RPS’ 304-space Hoboken garage’s 99.999% near flawless 24/7 operation between 2002 and 2006 was the reason RPS was chosen to build the 745-space garage in Dubai. The design for the second RPS garage in Dubai, at 1,200 spaces, was based on the successes of the Hoboken and first Dubai garages. The federal government of Kuwait selected RPS for its new 2,350-space garage atop a 684-space CCRG for the federal courthouse based on the previous RPS garages’ successes.

Who, therefore, credibly can demand a “greater success rate” than what these three pre-Kuwait RPS garages have delivered? How can one not acknowledge the “proven record” of these three garages? All of these garages exceed the capacity desired by the City of Newburyport. It should not go unnoticed not only by the City of Newburyport, but any entity that designs, approves, and/or operates a parking garage that initial project estimate, that does not include the 115

http://www.springfield-ma.gov/planning/fileadmin/Planning_files/us_GUIDELINES_FOR_FTA_FUNDED_PROCUREMENTS_06042012.pdf; https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/bppm-procurement-object-types-special-considerations, at (§6.1.5). 116 http://www.gao.gov/products/120241.

Page 14 of 29

required life-cycle cost estimates, should not be the only deciding factor. Safety, property damage and theft, greenhouse gases, product liability, aesthetics, and significant unbudgeted life-cycle costs of repair and maintenance, as well as drastic carbon footprint reduction, are key advantages of RPS garages. As noted, life cycle costs are not even accounted for in the City of Newburyport’s $11.4 million cost estimates (nor the $1 million cost of the CCRG façade), which violates Federal VE law, as shown above. Why shouldn’t the U.S. require and benefit from the same proven, cost-effective, liability-reducing “Made in the USA” RPS technology -- the same life-saving, greener parking solution for America’s parking garage patrons that our allies have determined to be their preferred choice? What about the parking garages for our embassies? If the U.S. Federal agencies had consistently followed Federal law that mandates “Value Engineering,” for example, RPS is convinced there would be many RPS garages across the country now. Think of the lives saved from assault, vehicle injury, suicide, and falls. Think about increased commerce from patrons who now avoid CCRGs based on fear of attack. The new White House Office of Environment Quality’s August 2, 2016 guidance (see below), should add strength to acceptance of RPS’ design approach, relative to the needs of garage patrons, ensuring that future U.S. parking garages would be much safer and cleaner. The significant saved funds from inevitable collateral damage caused by CCRGs can be redirected to currently underfunded or new infrastructure projects and social programs. Workers who pour concrete for CCRGs, for example, could repair highways, build RPS garages, and retrofit current CCRGs for residential housing and commercial offices with new façades. As shown above, the proof of VE and GHG reduction already has been demonstrated across Federal, state, and local agencies. Researchers implore parties that seek to establish VE workshops to ensure that they guard against implicit and explicit bias.117 If there isn’t an explicit current VE signoff requirement on each Federal project, with the names of the individuals who approve a project, with a VE check-off, then there should be. However, what is heartening is that the OEQ and GHG mandates were written and approved by bipartisan majorities. Also, all four major Presidential candidates in 2016, plus Sen. Bernie Sanders, supported an aggressive infrastructure agenda. White House Office of Environmental Quality (“OEQ”) Greenhouse Gas (“GHG”) Final Federal Guidance On August 2, 2016, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released final guidance for all Federal agencies to consider, measure, and ensure optimal mitigation of the negative impacts of climate change in their mandated National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, specifically regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the impact on the human environment.118 The arduous and lengthy process, begun in the George W. Bush Administration, allowed full public and private stakeholders’ participation in the finalization of the guidance. 119 Each agency, such as DOT, DHS, FBI, and the VA, are now required to quantify how their actions will impact greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in proposed projects and to avoid unacceptable public health, safety, and financial implications and risks for communities. 120 The final OEQ guidance press release states that “a level of predictability and certainty” must be achieved in how Federal agencies describe these impacts by “quantifying [GHG] emissions when conducting NEPA reviews,” designed to allow decision makers and the public “to more fully understand the potential climate impacts of all proposed Federal actions, and, in turn, assist agencies in comparing alternatives and considering measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change.” Agencies are to use “necessary tools, methodologies and [available] data inputs.” 121 The guidance also [counsels] agencies to 117

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245492513_Value_Engineering_and_its_Rewards https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/nepa_final_ghg_guidance.pdf 119 For purposes of this guidance, CEQ defines GHGs in accordance with Section 19(m) of Exec. Order No. 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, 80 Fed. Reg. 15869, 15882 (Mar. 25, 2015) (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, nitrogen trifluoride, and sulfur hexafluoride). Also for purposes of this guidance, "emissions" includes release of stored GHGs as a result of and management activities affecting terrestrial GHG pools such as, but not limited to, carbon stocks in forests and soils, as well as actions that affect the future changes in carbon stocks. The common unit of measurement for GHGs is metric tons of C02 equivalent (mt COi-c). 120 This guidance is not a rule or regulation, and the recommendations it contains may not apply to a particular situation based upon the individual facts and circumstances. This guidance does not change or substitute for any law, regulation, or other legally binding requirement, and is not legally enforceable. The use of non-mandatory language such as “guidance,” “recommend,” “may,” “should,” and “can,” is intended to describe CEQ policies and recommendations. The use of mandatory terminology such as “must” and “required” is intended to describe controlling requirements under the terms of NEPA and the CEQ regulations, but this document does not affect legally binding requirements. 121 The term “NEPA review” is used to include the analysis, process, and documentation required under NEPA. While this document focuses on NEPA reviews, agencies are encouraged to analyze GHG emissions and climate-resilient design issues early in the planning and development of proposed actions and projects under their substantive authorities. This guidance also addresses recommendations offered by a number of stakeholders. See President’s State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, Recommendations to the President (November 2014), p. 20 (recommendation 2.7), available at 118

Page 15 of 29

consider alternatives that would make the action and affected communities more resilient to the effects of a changing climate [and r]eminds agencies to use existing information and science when assessing proposed action.” 73 The guidance,

beyond statutory “NEPA review” requirements, further implores Federal agencies “to ensure that projects and investments include adequate and coordinated consideration of the project design and alternatives in relation to climate impacts and [GHG] emissions, and to avoid unacceptable public health, safety, and financial risks for communities.” 122 (emphasis added) Robotic Parking Systems, Inc. (RPS), as noted above, invented, builds, installs, and maintains arguably the cleanest, safest, most aesthetic, compact, and reliable parking garages in the world. (www.RoboticParking.com). With virtually no opportunity for sexual assault, suicide, murder, vehicle loss or damage, at comparable or lesser cost per space, and adjoining building façade-matching exteriors, RPS garages provide a superb multiplier effect of benefits beyond GHG mitigation, which in themselves reduce GHGs by at least 90% over conventional concrete ramp garages (CCRGs). All spaces are handicapped accessible. Two to three times as many parking spaces can be created vis-à-vis a CCRG, allowing lower above-ground garage height. Underground RPS applications require 50% less costly excavation. RPS believes that due to the 1998 “Restatement (Third) of Torts” legal test, accepted in most U.S. courts, using the standard of “Reasonable Alternative Design,” Federal, state, and local officials, as well as developers, architects, and owners likely will now be held accountable for injuries, deaths, and design shortcomings if they approved, designed, built, and/or operated a CCRG that was proposed or designed after 2005. 123 RPS technology has been professionally and independently vetted for top performance and has been well known since 2005, especially because of the internet. The OEQ GHG guidance is the latest in the overall Federal response to ensuring that safety and value are mandatory imperatives that each relevant Federal agency should or must fully explicate and resolve before initiating or continuing a Federal project, just as the 1996 Military Construction Authorization Act requires each Federal agency to conduct or subcontract “value engineering” [“VE”] evaluations before signing off on a Federal contract. As noted earlier, if a contractor believes it can save money and/or increase safety and functionality after a construction project is underway, it can submit a “Value Engineering Change Request [“VECR”].” 124 If accepted, the contractor can share in up to 55% of the savings. It is a “win-win” for everyone, except, maybe, the concrete industry. Since all Presidential candidates are “all-in” on infrastructure projects, presumably those that are safer, more functional, and have lower life-cycle costs, RPS expects its technology will fare well in any new parking garage project that will be under consideration. If an RFP draws interest from two or more bidders, it would seem like a no-brainer for a developer to insist on an VE-vetted RPS robotic garage alternative that should ensure being in the final selection of other developers that have a VE-vetted RPS robotic garage in its plans. This new OEQ-NEPA guidance complements and adds further strength to the VE mandate. RPS believes it is required reading not only for the entire parking garage construction and design industry, but the U.S. and the world. RPS believes that such enlightenment will cause previous naysayers to embrace the fully automatic and proven robotic parking garage design technology of Robotic Parking Systems, Inc. It should be understood that NEPA requires that Federal agencies conduct full-scale reviews considering the impacts of environmental change on both the climate environment and the human environment, the latter of which includes safety, functional, and fiscal imperatives, and those that “change the actions” of environmental effects over the lifetime of those effects,”125 just as VE must include “life-cycle” costs of the on-going maintenance and replacement costs of a project. “In www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/task_force_report_0.pdf; U.S. Government Accountability Office, Future Federal Adaptation Efforts Could Better Support Local Infrastructure Decision Makers, (Apr. 2013), available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/653741.pdf. For public comments on drafts of this guidance http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/nepa/comments. 122 https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/08/02fact-sheet-white-house-council-environmental-quality-releases-final. NEPA recognizes “the profound impact of man’s activity on the interrelations of all components of the natural environment.” (42 U.S.C. 4331(a)). It was enacted to, inter alia, “promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man. (42 U.S.C. 4321). 123 https://www.environment.fhwa.dot.gov/projdev/tdmalts.asp; 124 http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/cqit/vecp.cfm; https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/procurement/project-management-oversight-pmo; http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/ConstructionMgt/Admin/Value%20Engineering/vepolicy.pdf; http://www.ct.gov/dot/lib/dot/documents/dconstruction/qa/v_e_manual_feb_2013_update.pdf; https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/docs/FTACONSTRUCTION-PRJT-MGMT-HDBK2009.pdf; 125 See 40 CFR 1502.2(b) (Impacts shall be discussed in proportion to their significance); 40 CFR 1502.15 (Data and analyses in a statement shall be commensurate with the importance of the impact…). 8 See 40 CFR 1502.24 (Methodology and scientific accuracy). See 40 CFR 1507.3. Agency NEPA implementing procedures can

Page 16 of 29

accordance with NEPA’s rule of reason and standards for obtaining information regarding reasonably foreseeable effects on the human environment, agencies need not undertake new research or analysis of potential climate change impacts [and effects] in the proposed action area, but may summarize and incorporate by reference the relevant current scientific literature” and data that are relevant in their decision making processes. 126 (emphasis added) A 2013 Executive Order defined “climate-resilient design,” with particular reference to flood plains, in that environmental impact statements must succinctly describe the environmental impacts affected or created by the alternatives under consideration.127 The guidance further states that agencies should provide the public and decision makers with explanations of the basis for agency determinations,128 (e.g., especially how alternative parking garage design, such as RPS garages, significantly reduce GHGs and virtually eliminate internal garage assaults, suicides, and vehicle damage, and can significantly reduce parking garage collateral costs of crime to society). (emphasis added) As noted, this initiative represents a process by which the Federal government has sought to modernize Federal agency implementation of NEPA to improve the transparency, involvement of the public, and the efficiency of environmental reviews. Included in this effort is the “launch of a NEPA pilot program to identify and promote more efficient ways to do environmental reviews that can be replicated across the Federal government, forming rapid response teams to help expedite the review process for transportation, for example.”129 (emphasis added) RPS plans to apply for such pilot study.

be, but are not required to be, in the form of regulation. Section 1507.3 encourages agencies to publish explanatory guidance, and agencies also should consider whether any updates to explanatory guidance are necessary. Agencies should review their policies and implementing procedures and revise them as necessary to ensure full compliance with NEPA. 126 40 CFR 1508.14 (“‘Human environment’ shall be interpreted comprehensively to include the natural and physical environment and the relationship of people with that environment.”). 40 CFR 1508.25(b) (“Alternatives, which include: (1) No action alternative. (2) Other reasonable courses of actions. (3) Mitigation measures (not in the proposed action).”). 40 CFR 1500.1(c) (“Ultimately, of course, it is not better documents but better decisions that count. NEPA’s purpose is not to generate paperwork—even excellent paperwork—but to foster excellent action. The NEPA process is intended to help public officials make decisions that are based on understanding of environmental consequences, and take actions that protect, restore, and enhance the environment.”). 127 See 40 CFR 1502.16, 1508.9. 25 See 40 CFR 1500.1, 1502.24 (requiring agencies to use high quality information and ensure the professional and scientific integrity of the discussions and analyses in environmental impact statements). 128 NEPA directs Federal agencies to make “advice and information useful in restoring, maintaining, and enhancing the quality of the environment” available to States, Tribes, counties, cities, institutions and individuals. NEPA Sec. 102(2)(G). 48 See CEQ Memorandum to Heads of Federal Agencies, Appropriate Use of Mitigation and Monitoring and Clarifying the Appropriate Use of Mitigated Findings of No Significant Impact, 76 FR 3843 (Jan. 21, 2011) https://ceq.doe.gov/current_developments/docs/Mitigation_and_Monitoring_Guidance_14Jan2011.pdf . See Presidential Memorandum: Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Related Private Investment (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/03/mitigatingimpacts-natural-resources-development-and-encouraging-related) defining “durability” and addressing additionality. 129 See also, Exec. Order No. 13653, 78 Fed. Reg. 66817 (Nov. 6, 2013) and Exec. Order No.13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, 80 Fed. Reg. 15869 (Mach 25, 2015) (defining “climate-resilient design”). 53 See 40 CFR 1502.15 (providing that environmental impact statements shall succinctly describe the environmental impacts on the area(s) to be affected or created by the alternatives under consideration). Agencies should also consider their work under Exec. Order No. 13653, Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change, 78 Fed. Reg. 66817 (Nov. 6, 2013), that considers how capital investments will be affected by a changing climate over time. 57 See, e.g., http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/coasts. See 40 CFR 1502.21 (material may be incorporated by reference if it is reasonably available for inspection by potentially interested persons during public review and comment). CFR 1501.2 (“Agencies shall integrate the NEPA process with other planning at the earliest possible time…”); See also CEQ Memorandum for Heads of Federal Departments and Agencies, Improving the Process for Preparing Efficient and Timely Environmental Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, 77 Fed. Reg. 14473 (Mar. 12, 2012), available at https://ceq.doe.gov/current_developments/docs/Improving_NEPA_Efficiencies_06Mar2012.pdf. 63 See Exec. Order No. 11988, “Floodplain Management,” 42 Fed. Reg. 26951 (May 24, 1977), available at http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/11988.html; See Exec. Order No. 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority and Low-Income Populations, 59 Fed. Reg. 7629 (Feb. 16, 1994), available at https://ceq.doe.gov/nepa/regs/eos/ii-5.pdf; CEQ, Environmental Justice Guidance Under the National Environmental Policy Act (Dec. 1997), available at http://ceq.doe.gov/nepa/regs/ej/justice.pdf. Consider the health effects of CCRG parking garage employees, including particularly valets vis-à-vis coal miners regarding exposure levels to GHGs. See http://sustainability.performance.gov for agency sustainability plans, which contain agency adaptation plans. See also http://www.wildlifeadaptationstrategy.gov; See also Third National Climate Assessment, Chapter 28, “Adaptation,” at 675 (noting that Federal agencies in particular can facilitate climate adaptation by “ensuring the establishment of federal policies that allow for “flexible” adaptation efforts and take steps to avoid unintended consequences”), available at http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/response-strategies/adaptation#intro-section-2. See Council on Climate Change Preparedness and Resilience, Priority Agenda Enhancing the Climate Resilience of America’s Natural Resources, at 52 (Oct. 2014), available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/enhancing_climate_resilience_of_americas_natural_resources.pdf. See 40 CFR 1501.7 (“There shall be an early and open process for determining the scope of issues to be addressed and for identifying the significant issues related to a proposed action. This process shall be termed scoping.”); see also CEQ Memorandum for Heads of Federal Departments and Agencies, Improving the Process for Preparing Efficient and Timely Environmental Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, March 6, 2012, available at https://ceq.doe.gov/current_developments/docs/Improving_NEPA_Efficiencies_06Mar2012.pdf (the CEQ Regulations explicitly require scoping for preparing an EIS, however, agencies can also take advantage of scoping whenever preparing an EA). See 40 CFR 1500.4(b), 1500.4(g), 1501. See 40 CFR 1501.7 (The agency preparing the NEPA analysis must use the scoping process to, among other things, determine the scope and identify the significant issues to be analyzed in depth) and CEQ, Memorandum for General Counsels, NEPA Liaisons, and Participants in Scoping, April 30, 1981, available at https://ceq.doe.gov/nepa/regs/scope/scoping.htm.

Page 17 of 29

Although the NEPA guidance contained an example of sea change effects on a proposed project in the analysis of projects that likely would be vulnerable due to climate change, RPS believes it is fully consistent with the NEPA review guidance protocol that a thorough review of relevant parking garage technologies, including those of RPS, will provide wellcorroborated information that Federal agencies can use to consider in initial project design, as well as alternatives with preferable overall environmental outcomes and improved resilience to climate impacts. Therefore, RPS believes that when an agency is considering a proposed long-term development of transportation infrastructure, such as a parking garage, it must take into account climate change effects on the environment and, as applicable, consequences of greater life cycle maintenance required for CCRGs vis-à-vis RPS garages that shorten the projected life of the project and significantly engender negative effects on the environment, not to mention personal safety impacts and property loss. The example in the OEG guidance stated that “given the length of time involved in present sea level projections, such considerations typically will not be relevant to short-term actions with short-term effects.” However, the gravity of the documented safety, security, increased life-cycle maintenance, and aesthetic shortcomings of CCRGs can be immediately addressed by “short-term action” by the Federal sector by forcefully enforcing NEPA and VE mandates and, therefore, provide the positive “short-term effects” of safer and cleaner RPS garage technology, and modify existing building contracts for new CCRGs to substitute them with contracts for RPS garages. 130 Although VE is required to be conducted by all Federal agencies to ensure that the safest, most functional, most costeffective design is approved and built, a VE expert who has asked not to be identified for concern for his job, stated to RPS that Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) reviewers consistently “blow off” the VE requirement. That is a clear violation of the law, which must be enforced for the safety and fiscal interests of the public and the Federal budget. I have begun initial discussions with the FTA Region One office in Cambridge, MA As noted previously, RPS’ website details meticulously conducted studies and reviews by acclaimed researchers that clearly demonstrate that due to the design of RPS garages vis-à-vis CCRGs, they emit over 90% less in all categories of unhealthy GHGs at no additional cost. 131 Although the new OEQ guidance does not “establish any particular quantity of GHG emissions as ‘significantly’ affecting the quality of the human environment or give greater consideration of the effects of GHG emissions and climate change over other effects on the human environment,” 132 certainly a 90%+ reduction in GHGs suggests that RPS garages’ GHG reduction vis-à-vis CCRGs would meet the definition of “significantly” in anyone’s lexicon. RPS believes that its proven parking garage design provides a “technologically optimal personal safety” (“TOPS”) design for a parking garages of 100 spaces or more anywhere in the world. 133 If Dubai and Kuwait comprehends this, why can’t the U.S.? The original Hoboken City Council that approved its city’s RPS garage in the late 1990s clearly understood that, too. When a parking garage is being considered and designed for a Federal or private project, for any decision-maker, Federal or private, to not to clearly review the fully verifiable 14-year experience of RPS parking garage technology that provides a 90%+ lifetime reduction in GHGs vis-à-vis the average CCRG, is clearly, in the view of RPS, administrative malpractice. OEQ and agencies are urged to coordinate identified major reductions provided by alternative technologies, akin to what is required under VE. However, based on RPS review, it appears that no U.S. Federal agency has considered (or seriously considered) RPS garage technology since 2002 or that VE has been conducted, using RPS design and data information in making new parking garage decisions. We trust that this new OEQ/NEPA guidance will be the appropriate additional “enlightenment” to Federal agencies, local and state governments, architects, developers, and planners to look at the clear evidence in benefits of RPS garages as built by RPS in New Jersey, Dubai, and Kuwait. 130

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/nepa_final_ghg_guidance.pdf, pp. 9-10. See 40 CFR 1502.16(c), 1506.2(d) (where an inconsistency exists, agencies should describe the extent to which the agency will reconcile its proposed action with the plan or law). See also Exec. Order No. 13693, 80 Fed. Reg. 15869 (Mar. 25, 2015) (establishing GHG emission and related goals for agency facilities and operations. Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are typically separate and distinct from analyses and information used in an EA or EIS.) 132 See 40 CFR 1502.24 (requiring agencies to ensure the professional and scientific integrity of the discussions and analyses in environmental impact statements). USGCRP, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United State: A Scientific Assessment (Apr. 2016), available at https://health2016.globalchange.gov/downloads. For more information on the Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice co-chaired by EPA and CEQ, see http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/interagency/index.html. 133 President’s Memorandum for the Heads of All Departments and Agencies, Executive Order on Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority and Low-Income Populations (Feb. 11, 1994), available at https://ceq.doe.gov/nepa/regs/eos/ii5.pdf; CEQ, Environmental Justice Guidance Under the National Environmental Policy Act, available at https://ceq.doe.gov/nepa/regs/ej/justice.pdf. See 40 CFR 1502.20, 1508.28. A programmatic NEPA review may be appropriate when a decision is being made that is subject to NEPA, such as establishing formal plans, programs, and policies, and when considering a suite of similar projects. 131

Page 18 of 29

RPS’ stance, as articulated in this White Paper, further demonstrates how the ill-advised continued construction of CCRGs at universities, VA and other hospitals, casinos, apartment buildings, movie theaters, malls, etc., perpetuates patrons’ risks of safety, such as sexual assault, suicide, murder, vehicle damage and theft, virtually all of which are eliminated with RPS parking garage design and technology. As previously noted, 100% of RPS parking spaces are handicapped accessible, too, which is particularly important for VA and regular hospitals, not to mention senior citizen facilities. VE analysis does not require cost as a factor in the mandated evaluation, but, as noted earlier, below-ground RPS applications are less costly than CCRG applications, due to less excavation. Also, above ground CCRG applications are much taller than CCRGs vis-à-vis RPS garages, space-for-space, and RPS garage aesthetics are managed with façades that can mirror adjoining buildings, which is especially important in historic communities. Usual RPS applications can store and retrieve a vehicle in one to 2.5 minutes, boosting patrons’ work productivity by reducing travel time and wait for their vehicles. DOT/FHWA/Transportation Pooled Fund [TPF] Program: allows State departments of transportation (DOTs) and the Federal Highway Administration to “create synergy – by leveraging research, avoiding duplication of effort, and joining forces on planning and research projects of mutual interest.” RPS believes that no State DOT or the Federal DOT has ever done the type of research or analysis on RPS technology that it deserves despite the myriad of documented safety, environmental, and net life-cycle cost benefits that RPS technology has demonstrated both in the U.S. in 2002, in Dubai in 2007 and 2008, and in tests in 2016 for its 2,350-space garage for the Federal courthouse in Kuwait. For a study to qualify for the TPF Program, “more than one State transportation agency, Federal agency, or other agency (such as a municipality or metropolitan planning organization), university, or private company must find the subject important enough to volunteer funds or other resources to conduct the research, planning, or transfer technology activity.”134 FHWA developed an interactive website: www.pooledfund.org as the mechanism by which all project partners can post and update information. RPS is willing to join with a State DOT or FHWA to volunteer funds and resources to conduct research, planning or technology transfer activity and also seek university and municipality participation. According to the FHWA, “[i]n many cases, the pooled fund process provides an excellent mechanism to promote new technology” [and RPS believes are potential candidates for public-private partnerships]. “The TPF Program is distinctive in that it allows [governments and private] entities outside the U.S. to participate,”135 which, in the case of RPS’s new project in Kuwait for its hybrid CCRG/RPSG federal courthouse garage or the two private sector RPS garages in Dubai, RPS believes would be perfect opportunities for collaboration between foreign entities and those in the U.S. DOT “Accelerated Innovation Deployment Demonstration” Grant Opportunity: As noted in the bullet point section, above, effective September 1, 2016, a renewed funding opportunity, authorized within the Technology and Innovation Deployment Program under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (“FAST”) Act, will provide ‘incentive funding’ for “any phase of a highway transportation project planning and project delivery including: [p]lanning, financing, operation, structures, materials, pavements, environment, and construction that address the TIDP goals.”(emphasis added) Up to $1 million per project, at 80% Federal share, can be funded on a rolling basis. The program’s goals include funding that will “[significantly accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies … to “provide leadership and incentives to demonstrate state-of-the-art technologies … elevated performance standards … and improved quality and user satisfaction.” In addition, the grant program’s goals are to improve such projects’ “efficiency, safety, mobility, reliability, service life (i.e., lower net life-cycle costs), environmental protection [e.g., new OEQ guidance], and sustainability. Further, the AID program funding is for ‘develop[ing] and deploy[ing] new tools, techniques, and practices to accelerate the adoption of innovation in all aspects of highway transportation. RPS is confident that if a State or regional transportation agency competed for an AID grant, it would be awarded, since RPS is certain that its technology clearly meets all eight criteria. The recipient, such as a State DOT, would then be required to “commit to the deployment of the innovation as standard practice in the future, if the deployment is successful.” 136

134

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/general/pooledfund/04105/ Id. 136 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/09/01/2016-21063/notice-of-funding-opportunity-for-accelerated-innovation-deployment-demonstration 135

Page 19 of 29

RPS technology mirrors the Federal government’s commitment to making infrastructure policy and investment policy based on “sound science and rigorous analysis.” Also, it is fully coherent with DOT Secretary Foxx’s stated approach of fostering innovation, safety, and cost-effectiveness in transit decisions, including parking facilities. 137 Therefore, this program is a clear and enduring commitment of DOT and the Federal government to incentivize entities (e.g., States, local jurisdictions, regional transportation authorities, and the private sector) to “accelerate the implementation and adoption of proven innovation in highway transportation.” With the additional overarching Federal imprimaturs of VE and OEQ guidance, the DOT AID initiative and the TPF Program are clarion calls for such entities to fully involve RPS in any new parking garage initiative. Other Current Federal Policy: RPS technology is consistent with the National Academies of Science’s activities of: (1) its Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Emerging and Innovative Transport and Technologies (e.g., “new concepts and technologies related to … facilities … and transit technology integration with land use” and “smart parking”) 138 and (2) its TRB’s Committee on Application of Emerging Technologies to Design and Construction (e.g., “newly available and emerging technologies from fields other than transportation, such as… robotics.”)139 Why not fund pilot studies of RPSGs at VA hospitals, transit stations, or other places with histories of high crime, suicides, transit-related missed appointments, and handicapped access issues and seek public-private partnership funding,140 if necessary, such as from insurance companies or foundations? As noted above, the DOT TPF Program, is a perfect, proven (i.e., 20-year old) mechanism that can provide the basis for such collaboration and potential life-saving technology transfer applications. Also, the NAS TRB conducted a workshop in June 2016 on “Value at the Intersection of Health Care and Transportation,”141 which RPS is reviewing to determine if issues such as mobility from a parking garage to VA doctors in the hospital were discussed. RPS believes mobility needs of veterans and their caregivers clearly can be enhanced with an RPS garage. One hundred percent (100%) of the parking spaces in an RPS garage are handicapped accessible, with all access at the ground level! Return on Investment (ROI) is a key consideration for both private and public entities. Construction and development costs are detailed comparing a CCRG and an RPSG. Using automatic parking, developers can increase ROI by lowering the cost per space, thereby significantly lowering development costs. 142 Further, Samuel I. Schwartz, P.E., in Parking Magazine, March 2009, concluded that life cycle maintenance costs for RPSGs were 55% less vis-à-vis CCRGs.143 Why aren’t developers, parking consultants, and architects consistently showing life-cycle costs to clients? Royce Monteverdi, in discussing the reliability of GE motors and servers and Stratus Technologies’ IT systems, stated, “When you factor in the additional revenue-generating potential of [RPS’] parking solutions in a typical urban environment, it will always result in a new development profit for the total project compared to conventional car parks.” 144 As noted previously, under Federal law, such real life-cycle cost savings must be factored into the approval decision using VE mandates and OEQ/GHG guidance, but most often appear not to be, despite the credibility and proof of VE. RPS has documented that many wellknown parking garage consultants and architects are not fully informed about these long-term development and maintenance cost savings, victimization elimination, and liability reductions in presenting their proposals to clients regarding 137

http://www.constructiondive.com/news/dot-debuts-infrastructure-design-challenge-every-place-counts/418661/; When conducting a cost-benefit analysis, determining an appropriate method for preparing a cost-benefit analysis is a decision left to the agency’s discretion, taking into account established practices for cost-benefit analysis with strong theoretical underpinnings (for example, see OMB Circular A-4 and references therein). For example, the estimated and proven collateral costs to society for building a CCRG vs. a RPS garage (e.g., rape, suicide, murder, GHG-related health costs to CCRG employees, vehicle theft and damage, court costs, incarceration, CCRG staffing, increased life-cycle repair and maintenance, and lost productivity. Developed through an interagency process and peerreviewed research, committed to ensuring that the such collateral cost estimates reflect the best available science and methodologies and used to assess the social benefits of RPS garage design, including reducing carbon dioxide emissions across alternatives in rulemakings, it provides a harmonized, interagency metric that can give decision makers and the public useful information for their NEPA review. A direct comparison between CCRGs and RPS garages should be funded by the Federal government. For example, the results may be responsive to public comments or useful to the decision maker in further distinguishing between alternatives and mitigation measures. In all cases, the agency should ensure that its consideration of the information and other factors relevant to its decision is consistent with applicable statutory or other authorities, including requirements for the use of cost-benefit analysis. 138 http://www.trb.org/AFH30/AFH30.aspx 139 https://sites.google.com/site/trbafh30/ 140 http://www.federalgrants.com/Replicable-Smart-City-Technologies-Cooperative-Agreement-Program-55889.html 141 http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/PublicHealth/TransitAndHealthcare/DraftAgenda.pdf 142 http://roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_increase_revenue.htm 143 Schwartz, P.E., Samuel I. The Garage of the Future Must Be Green, Parking, March 2009; https://parkithere.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/comparison-of-operatingcosts-of-conventional-vs-automated-parking-garage/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uapA9DQ03KI 144 www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_green_parking.htm

Page 20 of 29

a CCRG vis-à-vis an RPSG. The public is the loser in life cycle costs and in the increased risks for loss of life and injury in a CCRG. Developers are prone to rely on status quo building systems, including CCRGs, based on historical views of known costs. However, RPS can prove that its technology is reliable and can reduce premises and product liability costs as well as lower life-cycle maintenance costs. Lower Insurance Premiums: RPS garages lower insurance hazard risks. A.M. Best, using its well-known underwriting guide, reviewed the design and processes of the Robotic Parking System and was very favorable. In its detailed review, the Robotic Parking System was assigned a low hazard risk in several categories. 145 In a research study on safety and environmental considerations regarding automatic garages, the author, Samuel I. Schwartz, P.E., in the same March 2009 study noted above, concluded that “[automatic] parking will be an insurance company’s dream.” 146 Economic Outlook for Parking Garages: “The 2013-2018 Outlook for Parking Lots, Garages, and Valet Parking Services in the United States,” was prepared by “Research and Markets.” The author, a British economist, defines and applies concepts of “latent demand” for the overall parking “market” category of “parking lots, garages, and valet parking services.” “Latent demand … is commonly defined by economists as the industry earnings of a market when the market becomes accessible and attractive to serve by competing firms. It is a measure … of potential industry earnings (P.I.E.) or total revenues (not profit) if the United States is served in an ‘efficient’ manner.” … “Latent demand can be either lower or higher than actual sales if a market is inefficient (i.e., not representative of relative competitive levels). Inefficiencies arise from a number of factors, including the lack of international openness, cultural barriers to consumption, regulations, and cartel-like [behavior] on the part of firms. In general, however, latent demand is typically larger than actual sales in a market.” The author further states that “the single most important variable determining consumption, assuming latent demand exists, is income (or other financial resources at higher levels of the value chain).” However, “[o]ther factors that can pivot or shape demand curves include external or exogenous shocks (i.e., business cycles) or changes in utility for the product in question.”147 (emphasis added) RPS believes that the change in risk/utility of parking garages, using the Robotic Parking System garage technology, can drive demand if its full benefits to society and the life-cycle cost bottom line can be known and objectively compared against CCRG design and use. When consulting firms with ties to CCRG design and construction firms 148 -- or who demonstrate unfair (or lack of) analysis of RPSGs -- do not identify, consider, or explicate the evidence of true life-cycle cost and safety advantages of robotic/automatic garages in a consulting contract that sought objective analysis of proven robotic alternatives (e.g., Walker, re Ridgewood, NJ),149 they must be called to account. It is essential, for example, that preconstruction VE and OEQ analyses be done so that entities do not recommend, blindly design, approve, and/or build only CCRGs. Lacking such objective review, RPS believes that such firms are acting out such “cartel-like behavior.” RPS’ designs for Ridgewood, NJ and Newburyport, MA, address the residents’ concerns of size, aesthetics, greenhouse gases, cost, which the planned and approved CCRGs do not. Walker did not include well-known and critically acclaimed RPS’ parking garage and technology in the report to the Ridgewood City Council nor did Desman for Newburyport, MA. (emphasis added) Role of Planning Bodies, Developers, and Architects: RPS posits that “plausible deniability,” “head in the sand,” clear disregard of the law, political contributions and similar considerations, and real or feigned ignorance of safer and “reasonable alternative design” RPSGs, might be more important factors that impede and prevent the adoption or consideration of safer products, such as RPS technology. These factors, we believe, must be thoroughly and openly vetted to ensure that RPSG technology can be fairly demonstrated and objectively evaluated ( e.g., through VE and OEQ guidance) so as to bring forth proper and needed risk and utility analyses of parking in a CCRG vis-à-vis an RPSG. Only by laying out all of the legal (e.g., products liability), functional, safety, crime prevention/deterrence, GHG reduction, and life cycle cost advantages of RPSGs, compared to the approval, use, and construction of CCRGs, will a decision-making body be doing the sworn job it is obligated to do to safeguard its citizens and manage its fiscal affairs responsibly, prudently, and ethically.

145

http://www.roboticparking.com/robotic_parking_reduce_liability.htm Schwartz, P.E., Samuel I. The Garage of the Future Must Be Green, Parking, March 2009. 147 http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/2458674/the_20132018_outlook_for_parking_lots_garages#pos-13) 148 http://www.northjersey.com/news/parking-authority-chief-may-have-had-conflict-of-interest-1.447862?page=all; http://www.saratogian.com/article/ST/20150322/LOCAL1/150329943; http://www.mass.gov/ethics/education-and-training-resources/implementationprocedures/municipal-employee-summary.html; http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2004/apr/01/paying-park-decisions-and-costs-river-park-square/ 149 A copy of the Walker study is available upon request. http://theridgewoodblog.net/questions-arise-on-the-new-walker-report-for-ridgewood-parking-garage/ 146

Page 21 of 29

According to Shannon Sanders McDonald, AIA, writing in the Whole Building Design Guide, in the article, “Parking Facilities,” last updated February 16, 2015, stated that architects must “[d]esign [parking garages] for the points of intersection between man and the automobile for adequate safety of movement.” However, her articles only offer design strategies to counter safety threats posed by CCRG designs rather than exploring proven RPS garage design that virtually eliminates any safety risk for parking garage patrons, even though RPS technology has been available since 2002. 150 Although McDonald provides a short general outlook into automatic garages without going into deeper considerations, RPS trusts the author will revise her recommendations accordingly in due time and provide a more in-depth analysis. Architect Buck Simpers, AIA, in an article in Parking Today (November 2003), entitled “Making Safety a Priority in Parking Garages,” discussed his 900-space CCRG design at the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, DE. He cited a study by Liability Consultants, Inc. of more than 1,000 premises liability lawsuits between 1992 and 2001 that “revealed that in almost one-third of all cases reviewed, the basis of the lawsuit was a murder, rape, robbery, or assault in a parking structure.” Mr. Simpers suggested a number of measures for assessing the quality and quantity of security needed for such a [CCRG] structure. Mr. Simpers touted his own design of the Wilmington courthouse garage as “a model of success in the design of a security-conscious parking structure.” 151 RPS is seeking crime data on this garage since it was completed. At the same time Mr. Simpers was designing the Wilmington, DE garage, RPS was designing, building, and opening (in 2002) its first U.S. robotic garage in Hoboken, NJ, only two hours away. As this White Paper hopefully demonstrates most emphatically, RPS believes that no CCRG, even those built since Simpers’ Wilmington courthouse garage, also opened in 2002, can match the safety, functionality, security, 95% greenhouse gas reduction, lower life-cycle cost, blight-free façades, and lower life-cycle costs of an RPS garage. That is why the success of RPS’s 314-space Hoboken garage, as touted in the aforementioned three-year study between 2002-2004, was the springboard for a 784-space garage in Dubai, which led to the 1,174-space RPS garage in Dubai, and the late-2016 2,350-space RPS garage in Kuwait. Many others, including ones for the FBI, DHS, and the VA, are being proposed by RPS for the U.S. market based the RAD product liability standard and on new mandates of the U.S. government based on Value Engineering requirements and the new White House Office of Environmental Quality guidance. RPS is reaching out to Mr. Simpers for comment regarding this White Paper and whether he and his colleagues have reviewed RPS’s technology and made a value judgment on its environmental, legal, cost, functional, and safety attributes vis-à-vis CCRG design. RFPs Should Require both CCRG and RPSG Proposals: Multiple developers respond to a specific RFP to try to win a construction project, but only one wins. To increase their chances of being selected, why don’t developers and architects submit alternative garage design proposals – one for a CCRG and one for a RPS garage? With the Federally required Value Engineering protocol, such mandates, including VECP provisions, should be clearly stated and fully enforced in all Federal RFPs and contracts. So much time, expense, and effort go into developing such responses to RFPs that the dual or alternative parking garage design approach should be a “no-brainer,” especially since it is clear that liability and life-cycle costs have been documented to be significantly reduced or eliminated with an RPSG design. See “RAD” discussion, on page 25. Who wants to have an otherwise stellar building design and façade lose to a competitor’s by only proposing a conventional garage? On college campuses, we are confident that students/parents and faculty will choose our garage design, if they knew safety advantages and were provided the choice in VE and OEQ pre-construction discussions. The same goes for veterans, hospital employees and patients, and apartment dwellers. We believe RPS garage design is major proven cost-effective solution that can inject the reduced liability and increased safety issues into VE, OEQ, and other discussions at high decision-making levels in order to impact such entities’ seeming “resistance to change.” As Stephen King wrote in his novel, 11/22/63, “[r]esistance to change is proportional to how much the future might be altered by a given act.” 152 Litigation and Court Judgments: Lawsuits by patrons (or their next of kin) of parking facilities alleging liability for deaths, assaults other injuries, and property damage or loss caused by structural defects/collapse, criminal acts, toxic chemicals, or other hazardous conditions are clearly increasing. A recent $4M “trip and fall” South Carolina court judgment 153 and a 150

https://www.wbdg.org/design/parking.php; http://www.academia.edu/1759280/PCI_and_PARKING_PAST_PRESENT_AND_FUTURE http://www.parkingtoday.com/articledetails.php?id=235; http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/14946/title/4-parking-securityessentials/viewall/true.aspx; http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/09/10/parking-ramps-safety/72029112/ 152 King, S. (2011). 11/22/63: A novel. New York: Scribner 153 http://www.injuryclaimcoach.com/parking-lot-injury.html#; http://www.mklawsc.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/03/SC_2014_WL_7934110_BURKE_v_REPUBLIC_PARKING_SYSTEM_INC.pdf 151

Page 22 of 29

massive $26.5M settlement in the collapse of a Miami-Dade College CCRG under construction,154 among others, validate this trend and likely are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in such litigation in forthcoming years. There has been liability for failing to adopt measures to avoid future harm-causing injury or known security and safety deficits that might have prevented a third person from inflicting harm upon guests, including a recent $6.6M Boston Radisson hotel rape judgment. The case’s lead counsel and the principal of Atlanta's Keenan Law Firm, Don Keenan, suggested that jurors in that case placed all the blame on the corporate owners of the Radisson hotel and none on LAZ Parking, the garage management company, because the hotel had not increased security after a similar attack by the same rapist only 12 days before his client was assaulted. "I think the jury was so angry at the corporate defendants that they just let LAZ off the hook.”155 It should be noted that the City of Newburyport and the Merrimack Regional Transportation Authority is contracting with LAZ Parking for the planned CCRG. LAZ Parking continues to tout a safety profile. Also, LAZ Parking owns and/or operates many parking garages across the U.S. A LAZ CCRG garage in Johnson City, NY had a catastrophic collapse. 156 The duty may arise when the "totality of circumstances" are considered or the owner knows or has reason to know of prior incidents of the same or similar kind committed on the premises, as was the case in the Boston hotel case, above, only twelve days after a rape by the same perpetrator. An excellent discussion of premises liability and the distinction between various courts’ legal standards of ‘totality of the circumstances’ and ‘prior similar incidents’ was published by Robert W. Foster, Esq.157 His succinct statement explaining the totality of circumstances test is “[a] substantial factor in the determination of duty is the number, nature, and location of prior similar incidents, but the lack of prior similar incidents will not preclude a claim where the landowner knew or should have known that the criminal act was foreseeable.” 158 (emphasis added) However, it is my contention that the word “location” should be interpreted to include the type and design of building, such as a CCRG vis-à-vis an RPSG, not whether a rape or other crime had occurred at the very same or similar location or structure. How else would the first victim of a crime at a specific building or structure avoid injury or death? Society and the law need to have moved past giving a “pass” on liability for first incidents of crime if a safer, reasonable alternative designed structure, such as an RPSG, could have been built, especially if the incident occurred at or after the time that the architect, planning body, and/or developer knew or should have known that the “reasonable alternative design” of Robotic Parking System, Inc. technology and design existed and had been thoroughly vetted for its proven ability to prevent the type of crime for which a CCRG owner or operator had been sued. LAZ’ website,159 however, lists its top two “deliverables” as “Hospitality-trained and uniformed professionals with a passion for service” and “Clean, safe and well-run facilities.”160 (emphasis added) Other hotel chains, such as Marriott, have considered the intimidating defense strategy of “blaming the victim” of a rape, but drop prior to trail.161 Court of Appeals Judge Learned Hand, stated his standard for imposing product liability for certain personal injuries persuasively: “There are precautions so imperative that even their universal disregard will not excuse their omission.” The T. J. Hooper. 60 F.2d 737.162 That 1932 ruling was 84 years ago and RPS believes that is still relevant today to assign liability for sexual and physical assaults, suicides, other deaths, property damage, and thefts due to products, like parking garages, that have been placed in the stream of commerce since 2005 with the imputed knowledge of a cost-reasonable, safer, reliable, and readily available “reasonable alternative design,” such as provided by RPS. 163

154

https://www.osha.gov/doc/engineering/2013_r_02.html; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/miami-dade-parking-garage-collapse/; http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2015/05/14/368124.htm; http://www.enr.com/articles/2149-builders-26-5m-settlement-will-rebuild-colleges-collapsed-garage?v=preview 155 http://www.innercircle.org/News/1284746/AtlantaLawyerWins66MVerdictinBostonRapeCase; 21st Century Security and CPTED: Designing for Critical Infrastructure and Crime Prevention / edited by Randall I. Atlas. 112-115. (2013). 156 http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/watchdog/2015/09/10/parking-ramps-safety/72029112/ 157 http://www.thefederation.org/documents/10.-Defending%20the%20Premises%20Liability%20Claim.pdf 158 Delta Tau Delta, 712 N.E.2d at 973. 159 https://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/sociallaw/student_projects/DutytoWarn.html; http://www.thefederation.org/documents/10.Defending%20the%20Premises%20Liability%20Claim.pdf 160 https://www.lazparking.com/our-company/solutions/management 161 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/18/marriott-drops-blame-victim-defense-in-womans-rape/ 162 https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/cases/345 163 http://www.bpslawyers.com/Articles/Parking-Lot-Cases-of-Negligent-Security-Supervision.shtml; http://www.diogenesllc.com/liabilitytrends.pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_v._Gates;

Page 23 of 29

Negligence, Premises Liability, and Strict Liability Issues: As we all know, there has been an incredibly tragic death toll from bridge collapses and air bag and ignition switch manufacturing defects. The September 2015 DOT “Automated Vehicle” (“AV”) guidance echoes the DOT’s belief in a need for governments, jurisdictions, and manufacturers to anticipate and attempt to design out potential liability-causing AV defects. Why shouldn’t there by comparable DOT Parking Garage Design guidance to design out known liability-causing CCRG characteristics? DOT needs to take a step back from its missed opportunity and obligations to address currently available and generally known safer parking garage design and technologies ( e.g., RPS’) that impact DOT’s statutory and ethical responsibilities. An aggressive Federal response is warranted because of the millions of vehicles and drivers potentially affected. The number of deaths from these defects (