Park And Ride Research Articles

Development of Fuzzy Logic Forecast Models for Location-Based Parking Finding Services

Park-and-ride (PnR) facilities provided by Australian transport authorities have been an effective way to encourage car drivers to use public transport such as trains and buses. However, as populations grow and vehicle running costs increase, the demand for more parking spaces has escalated. Often, PnR facilities are filled to capacity by early morning and commuters resort to parking illegally in streets surrounding stations. This paper reports on the development of a location-based parking finding service for PnR users. Based on their current location, the system can inform users which is the best station to park their cars during peak period. Two criteria—parking availability and the shortest travel time—were used to evaluate the best station. Fuzzy logic forecast models were used to estimate the uncertainty of parking availability during the peak parking demand period. A prototype using these methods has been developed based on a case study of the Oats Street and Carlisle PnR facilities in Perth, Western Australia. The system has proved to be efficacious and has the potential to be applied to other parking systems.

Comparing the Capitalisation Benefits of Light-rail Transit and Overlay Zoning for Single-family Houses and Condos by Neighbourhood Type in Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona

Light rail transit (LRT) is increasingly accompanied by overlay zoning which specifies the density and type of future development to encourage landscapes conducive to transit use. Neighbourhood type (based on land use mix) is used to partition data and investigate how pre-existing land use, treatment with a park-and-ride (PAR) versus walk-and-ride (WAR) station and overlay zoning interrelate. Hedonic models estimate capitalisation effects of LRT-related accessibility and overlay zoning on single-family houses and condos in different neighbourhoods for the system in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Impacts differ by housing and neighbourhood type. Amenity-dominated mixed-use neighbourhoods-predominantly WAR communities-experience premiums of 6 per cent for single-family houses and over 20 per cent for condos, the latter boosted an additional 37 per cent by overlay zoning. Residential neighbourhoods-predominantly PAR communities-experience no capitalisation benefits for single-family houses and a discount for condos. The results suggest that land use mix is an important variable to select comparable neighbourhoods.

Evaluating the effects of parking price and location in multi-modal transportation networks

In urban transportation, combined mode trips are increasing in importance due to current urban transportation polices which encourage the use of transit through the creation of apposite parking lots and improvements in the public transportation system. It is widely recognized that parking policy plays an important role in urban management: parking policy measures not only affect the parking system, but also generate impacts to the transport and socioeconomic system of a city. The present paper attempts to expand on previous research concerning the development of models to capture drivers' parking behavior. It introduces in the modeling structure additional variables to the ones usually employed, with which the drivers' behavior to changes in prices and distances (mainly walking) are better captured. We develop a network model that represents trips as a combination of private and transit modes. A graph representing four different modes (car, bus, metro and pedestrian) is defined and a set of free park and ride facilities is introduced to discourage the use of private cars. An algorithm that evaluates the location and the effects of the parking price variation using multi-modal shortest paths is proposed together with an application to the City of Rome. Computational results are shown.