Cruising for parking around a circle

Abstract

Several recent papers have used the approximation that the number of curbside parking spaces searched before finding a vacant space equals the reciprocal of the expected curbside vacancy rate. The implied expected cruising-for-parking times are significantly lower than those that have been obtained through observation and simulation. Through computer simulation of cars cruising for parking around a circle in stochastic steady state, this paper shows that the approximation leads to underestimation of expected cruising-for-parking time and, at high occupancy rates, considerable underestimation. The paper also identifies several “effects” that contribute to the approximation being an increasingly poor one as the occupancy rate increases.