There’s a growing trend among park systems. They’re going autonomous.
Autonomous gates opening parks in the morning and closing them at night. And mowing. The county contracts a portion of those jobs. Those contracts went out for bid this year and the cost doubled. Enter autonomous electric lawnmowers.
Ben Swayze is director of the Kent County Parks and Recreation Department.
“If you haven’t seen it think basically a Roomba for your lawn but on a much bigger scale.”
The county is home to 43 parks. Gaines Township’s Creekside Park will deploy autonomous mowers in 2025 as part of an automation demonstration project.
“Really proud of the park’s operation staff. They actually put together a plan for nearly half of our parks to be able to either put in gates or autonomous mowers or both in order to save cost. So, we have a return-on-investment calculator for each one of those parks. Some of those return on investment is less than a year. Some of them it’s extended out, but none of them was more than eight years.”
Commissioner Stephen Wooden questioned the technology.
“Like when the Roomba I have at my home keeps knocking on my kid’s door and doesn’t realize it needs to turn around?”
And as Commissioner Tom Antor pointed out, a need for human support.
“I hate to take away the human element of that process because you see kids in the area you shut her down right away.”
Swayze explained when the autonomous mowers would operate, “The idea, when it’s completely autonomous, 10 o’clock comes up the gate close, make sure everybody’s out 10:15 the mowers come out, they do their thing.”
It must demonstrate to be successful at Creekside Park before budgeting for future parks automation projects.