Parking facilities and the built environment: Impacts on travel behaviour

Abstract

Car ownership and car use depend on numerous factors, among which are parking availability at destination and at home. While the former has attracted considerable research efforts for decades the latter, home parking, has recently become subject to increasing research interest.We use evidence from the 2013/14 Norwegian National Travel Survey, and combine this with additional geographical context data. In this way, we analyse the impact of parking availability at home and at destination on car use, while controlling for different urban contexts like housing and job density, and population density.The analysis is divided into three. The first part links car use to availability and payment arrangements of workplace parking. The second is concerned with the impact of home parking accessibility and car use. The third set of regressions looks at the combined effect of parking at trip start and the trip end on car use.Reduced access to free workplace parking stands out as one of the most effective ways of reducing car use on work trips. Maximum parking standards are therefore important parts of an urban planner’s toolbox. Workplace parking fees can be effective when parking capacity is abundant and especially so if payment is made on a daily basis. Car use is in fact almost doubled where employees can pay monthly instead of daily.Limited access to parking at home also affects car use. The decision to drive decreases with increasing walking distance to the car park, especially in densely built-up areas.Restricted parking both at home and at the trip destination add up to very low odds of car use. Parking restrictions will have the greatest effect in compact cities.