Parking Permit Scheme for Morning Commute considering Parking Search

Abstract

Improving parking efficiency is essential to promoting the reform in urban transportation. But the large amount of deadweight costs caused by the parking is often underestimated because it is difficult to measure. Based on the existing investigations from the small fraction of cruising vehicles, this paper explores the influencing factors of the parking issue and describes it by the user equilibrium model. Then, two types of permit management schemes were proposed, lot-based and spot-based. By analyzing their performance in reducing system cost, three conclusions were drawn. Firstly, parking search leads to traveler’s schedule and location adjustments, raises the trip cost, reduces the parking lot occupancy, and makes the parking issues “invisible.” Secondly, permit scheme levels up managers’ control, and it performs well in reducing deadweight loss, but only by eliminating the search cost, the deadweight loss can be fundamentally reduced. Thirdly, reducing parking search needs information guidance; with the rapid growth of urban parking demand, managers should make a transition to the permit scheme with parking information.