Parking Policies Research Articles

Conflicts, acceptance problems and participative policies in the national parks of the French Alps

This article provides an updated insight into the now completed compliance process with the charters of the French Alpine national parks (Vanoise, Ecrins, Mercantour), a participative measure that was initiated in 2006. A theoretical approach to social acceptance is given, followed by an analysis of the upsurge or the rise of conflicts during the negotiation process with local municipalities of the national park perimeter in a more empirical way. It will be demonstrated that fostering acceptability and participation does not necessarily produce wider social acceptation.

Method for Evaluating Economic Efficiency of Parking Management Tools

Abstract Parking policy determined and carried out in today's cities is based on a system of priorities. The main of them is the formation of a comfortable, favorable, safe and environmentally friendly city space. The goal can be reached if a certain city area is forbidden for cars. This study is aimed at economic evaluation of parking management tools, and analysis of users’ behavior with a glance to applied management tools. The study allowed obtaining comparative evaluations of efficiency of paid parking and time constraint by the example of Irkutsk. Besides, the study determined the optimum rate and the way how costs of searching for a parking spot influence the efficiency of management tools.

Trip and parking generation at transit-oriented developments: Five US case studies

Guidelines for trip and parking generation in the United States come mainly from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). However, their trip and parking manuals focus on suburban locations with limited transit and pedestrian access. This study aims to determine how many fewer vehicle trips are generated at transit-oriented developments (TODs), and how much less parking is required at TODs, than ITE guidelines would suggest.Our sample of TODs is small, which limits our ability to generalize. However, the five cases selected for this study are more or less exemplary of the D variables, at least in comparison with US norms. They are characterized by land-use diversity and pedestrian-friendly designs. They minimize distance to transit, literally abutting transit stations. They have varying measures of destination accessibility to the rest of the region via transit. Three have progressive parking policies, which fall under the heading of demand management. Two have high residential densities, and one has a high intensity of commercial development.Simply put, our case study TODs create significantly less demand for parking and driving than do conventional suburban developments. With one exception, peak parking demand in these TODs is less than one half the parking supply guideline in the ITE Parking Generation manual. Also, with one exception, vehicle trip generation rates are about half or less of what is predicted in the ITE Trip Generation Manual. Automobile mode shares are as low as one quarter of all trips, with the remainder being mostly transit and walk trips.

The elephant in the scheme: Planning for and around car parking in Melbourne, 1929–2016

A relatively recent body of literature has looked critically at the role of car parking in urban areas, showing that a significant determinant of the extent of parking space is the planning system. Of particular importance are statutory minimum off-street parking requirements for new developments. If parking and parking policies are significant to urban outcomes, one question that follows is − how active a role (if any) has strategic urban planning had in car parking? In this paper we ask if, and in what ways, car parking has been a stated strategic planning interest over the course of nearly a century of planning for one city − Melbourne, Australia. Our approach has three parts: a content analysis of strategic planning documents over time; a corresponding analysis of statutory policies on the ground; and reflection on what this means for the relationships between strategy and policy.We find that extensive car parking, treated as a public good, was once specifically planned as a critical component of facilitating a car-based city. We show that car parking has receded as a strategic policy issue over time, but that statutory minimum parking requirements introduced in the 1950s continue to be entrenched. Even with more recent strategic plans seeking to curtail car use and increase urban densities, minimum parking policies originally introduced to achieve the opposite effects have remained largely intact. We argue that parking has a significant role in urban form but is, in our case study city, illustrative of gaps between strategic and statutory planning, and between planning practice and research. Whereas post-war planning instigated policy approaches to car parking as a means of planning for car use, strategic planning in Melbourne now plans around parking − the elephant in the scheme. The findings have implications for other intensifying cities with a history of minimum parking policies; as well as for cities now undergoing rapid motorisation.

Ecological Analysis of Parking Prices and Active Commuting in US Cities, 2009.

We conducted an ecological study to determine whether parking prices are associated with active commuting across US cities. We obtained parking prices for 107 US cities from the Drexel University Central Business District Public Parking Survey, obtained city prevalence of walking and bicycling to work from the American Community Survey, and used weighted least squares linear regression to explore associations between parking prices and active commuting. After adjusting for several covariates, walking to work was 3.1% higher for every additional dollar charged for off-street daily parking, but only among more densely populated cities, and no such association was detected for bicycling to work. These preliminary results hint at the potential for parking policies to influence commuting mode choice, a link that city planners and public health officials could consider when evaluating parking policies and active transportation behaviors.

RESERVATION BASED S-PARK SYSTEM USING EMBEDDED SERVER AND ANDROID APPLICATION

Searching for a parking space in most metropolitan areas, especially during the rush hours, is difficult for car drivers. This problem arises from not knowing where the available spaces may be at that time; even if known, many vehicles may pursue very limited parking places to cause serious traffic congestion. In this project, we design and implement a prototype of smart parking (S-Park) system that allows drivers to effectively search and reserve the available parking spaces using an android application. By polling the parking status from the sensor networks deployed in parking lots, the reservation service is affected by the change of parking status. The drivers are allowed to access this system application on their Android Smartphones. The proposed reservation-based parking policy has the possibility to simplify the operations of parking systems, as well as minimize traffic congestion caused by parking searching thus making the parking system two-way efficient, that is, cost wise and time wise.

Examining participatory governance in a devolving UK: Insights from national parks policy development in Northern Ireland

This paper provides a contemporary examination of policy making and participatory practice in the context of devolving governance in the UK. The paper takes Northern Ireland as its focus and is particularly timely considering the context of devolved governance, the ongoing transition from conflict to relative peace and the potential for rejuvenating democracy through participatory governance. The paper concentrates on one particular policy process, namely the attempted designation of a national park in the Mournes Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. A thematic analysis of qualitative data is drawn upon to analyse the structural factors that framed the policy-making process, in particular the role of power in determining how consultation processes were initiated, designed and undertaken. Using Lukes’ model as an analytical framework, power is shown to manifest at multiple levels within the policy-making process to influence policy outcomes. The paper reveals how the persistence of a top-down approach to policy development combined with a highly parochial political outlook undermined attempts to designate a Mourne National Park. The paper concludes that, given the immaturity of recently devolved government in Northern Ireland, in this instance, the democratising intentions of devolved governance have not been met. This has implications for Northern Ireland’s recent reform of public administration which devolves certain planning powers to local authority level and the management of the internationally significant Mournes landscape.

A traffic equilibrium model with paid-parking search

This paper describes a Wardropian traffic flow model, integrated with a search model for paid parking. The occupancy rate influences the probability of finding on-street (kerbside) or off-street (garage) parking spaces. We formulate the model as a mixed complementarity problem, which can be solved without a complete enumeration of all possible paths, and the use of readily available software. We analyse different parking policies in Zurich and find that changing the parking fee structure will lead to high efficiency gains. Incorporating household heterogeneity is not critical for the overall efficiency effects, but shows important regressive, distributional effects. .

The Calanques National Park, between environmental effort and urban effort

Since 2008, our research has involved sociological monitoring of the political construction of the Calanques National Park, its social uses and the environmental controversy that has arisen. We have addressed these issues in the context of their interaction with urban policies. This article analyses the interactions between the Calanques National Park and the city of Marseille through the analytical framework of environmental effort. Environmental effort can be defined as the socially differentiated and potentially unequal contribution of social actors to public environmental protection policies. First, we show how the territorial make-up of Marseille has always involved a great deal of crossover between the city, the countryside and nature. Second, we examine the boundaries between the city and nature today, a result of convergence between a prevailing naturalist vision that dominated the creation of the Calanques National Park and the city’s urbanism strategy. Third, we show how the environmental effort required of the population in some districts to protect the Calanques in the context of park policy is compounded by an additional urban environmental effort required of inhabitants to support the transformations imposed on their immediate environment.

Between distance and proximity: nature parks and the city in Switzerland

Urban Nature Parks do not exist in Switzerland. A debate regarding their establishment in 2010 petered out. This failure exemplifies a representation of nature in the Swiss parks system, which should stand very far removed from the city. Since the establishment of Parks of National Importance in 2006, human activity has been tolerated under the condition that it is considered rural. Because it is neither wild, with the exception of a few rewilded forests, nor rural, urban nature has no place in this policy. However, the ‘a-urban’ conception of the parks policy in Switzerland does not preclude the existence of close links between cities and nature parks for obvious reasons of spatial and functional proximity. Hence, although the nature parks should be far removed from the cities by definition, they are very close to them by reality. Furthermore, this paradoxical situation is accompanied by the emergence of local solutions, outside the framework of the official regulation of nature parks, for ensuring the conservation of open highly urbanized non-built areas at the outskirts of cities. However those Agglomeration Parks are far from constituting an equivalent alternative to the national strategy with no legal status, an absence of dedicated funding and their very large target gathered under the banner of “open spaces”.

Dog-walking, dog-fouling and leashing policies in urban parks: Insights from a natural experiment designed as a longitudinal multiple-case study

In this natural experiment, we investigated on-leash and off-leash policies as plausible influences on the behavior of dog-walkers in the City of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Following policy-mandated public consultations, two of the four parks initially proposed by the City as sites for new off-leash areas retained on-leash designations. Within a year of creating off-leash areas in two parks, we observed more dog-walkers and improved compliance with dog-fouling in one case, but not in the other. Compared to the previous year, we also observed more stationary dog-walkers in both of these parks. Paradoxically, activity levels amongst dog-walkers – including while dogs were off-leash – remained highest for a park that retained an on-leash designation. Off-leash policies in urban parks could have positive as well as negative implications for public health. In addition to off-leash policies, factors that merit consideration regarding dog-walking and dog-fouling include implementation strategies, physical features, socio-demographic characteristics and modifications to park environments.

Smart Parking System Based on Embedded System and Sensor Network

Locating a parking space in central city areas, especially during the peak hours, is cumbersome for drivers. The issue arises from not having the knowledge of where the available spaces may be at the time, even if known, many vehicles may seek very limited parking spaces to cause severe traffic congestion. In this paper the design and implementation with a prototype of Reservation-based Smart Parking System (RSPS) that permits drivers to effectively locate and withhold the vacant parking spaces in mentioned. This system use cluster based algorithm which helps in periodically learning the parking status from the sensor networks deployed in parking spaces, the reservation service is influenced by the change of parking status. The drivers are allowed to access this said cyber-physical system with their personal communication devices. The system implemented is cost efficient smart parking system for multi-level parking facility using WSN (IR Sensor) and develop an android based application, by cluster based allocation method and performs automatic billing process. The system monitors the availability of idle parking slots and guides the vehicle to the nearest free slot. Cost is minimized by keeping the number of sensors low without sacrificing the reliability. Energy consumption of each mote is kept in check by allowing the systems to sleep periodically and by reducing their communication range. This system‟s reservation-based parking policy has the potential to smoothen the operations of parking systems, as well as mitigate traffic congestion caused by searching for parking.

Solving the User Optimum Privately Owned Automated Vehicles Assignment Problem (UO-POAVAP): A model to explore the impacts of self-driving vehicles on urban mobility

Interest in vehicle automation has been growing in recent years, especially with the very visible Google car project. Although full automation is not yet a reality there has been significant research on the impacts of self-driving vehicles on traffic flows, mainly on interurban roads. However, little attention has been given to what could happen to urban mobility when all vehicles are automated. In this paper we propose a new method to study how replacing privately owned conventional vehicles with automated ones affects traffic delays and parking demand in a city. The model solves what we designate as the User Optimum Privately Owned Automated Vehicles Assignment Problem (UO-POAVAP), which dynamically assigns family trips in their automated vehicles in an urban road network from a user equilibrium perspective where, in equilibrium, households with similar trips should have similar transport costs. Automation allows a vehicle to travel without passengers to satisfy multiple household trips and, if needed, to park itself in any of the network nodes to benefit from lower parking charges. Nonetheless, the empty trips can also represent added congestion in the network. The model was applied to a case study based on the city of Delft, the Netherlands. Several experiments were done, comparing scenarios where parking policies and value of travel time (VTT) are changed. The model shows good equilibrium convergence with a small difference between the general costs of traveling for similar families. We were able to conclude that vehicle automation reduces generalized transport costs, satisfies more trips by car and is associated with increased traffic congestion because empty vehicles have to be relocated. It is possible for a city to charge for all street parking and create free central parking lots that will keep total transport costs the same, or reduce them. However, this will add to congestion as traffic competes to access those central nodes. In a scenario where a lower VTT is experienced by the travelers, because of the added comfort of vehicle automation, the car mode share increases. Nevertheless this may help to reduce traffic congestion because some vehicles will reroute to satisfy trips which previously were not cost efficient to be done by car. Placing the free parking in the outskirts is less attractive due to the extra kilometers but with a lower VTT the same private vehicle demand would be attended with the advantage of freeing space in the city center.

Analyzing the elements related to parking demand: An empirical study in Beijing

Previous studies have shown that constraining parking policy can alleviate air pollution and traffic congestion by reducing vehicle ownership and usage. The feasibility and efficiency of the parking policy are crucial to urban traffic planning and management. With the aim of exploring the elements related to parking demand and improving the policy efficiency, this study analyzed several factors relevant to vehicle ownership and usage which may affect the feasibility of policy. In all, 40,000 samples obtained from Beijing residents’ trip interview survey were used. A combined method with empirical study and network dynamic analysis is used to give a clear relationship between parking supply and private usage. The results, after conducting a quantitative analysis, show that vehicle ownership is related to family income, family size, geographic location, and parking fee, while trip purpose and parking fee in destination influence the frequency of car usage. It is noteworthy that the proportion of free parking in working trips is up to 96%, and single driving occupies a proportion as high as 90%. The research suggests that planners should be cautious of parking facility supply strategy and pay great attention to parking fees of working trip.

Patterns and Trends in Burned Area and Fire Severity from 1984 to 2010 in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir, Baja California, Mexico

Yellow pine (Pinus spp. L.) and mixed conifer (YPMC) forests of California, USA (Alta California), have been negatively affected since Euro-American settlement by a century or more of logging, fire exclusion, and other human activities. The YPMC forests in northwestern Mexico (northern Baja California) are found in the same climate zone as those of Alta California and support mostly the same dominant species, yet they are much less degraded, having suffered little logging and only 30 years of fire suppression. As such, the Baja California forests are believed to more closely approximate pre-Euro-American settlement conditions, and they have been proposed as reference ecosystems for restoration and management of Alta California forests. We studied fire severity trends in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park (SSPMNP), which supports the largest area of YPMC forest in Baja California, to determine whether fire severity is rising over the last three decades in the same manner that it is rising in the Sierra Nevada of Alta California. We used LANDSAT data to identify 32 fires that burned 26 529 ha in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park in the period 1984 to 2010. Of this, 1993 ha burned in YPMC forest types in 17 fires. We found no temporal trends in forest burned area or in the proportion of high severity fire, but we did find that the mean size of high severity patches within fires is rising. In the SSPMNP, the overall proportion of fire area burned at high severity averaged 3 % in both yellow pine and mixed conifer forests. We found no significant autoregressive effects of year in any of our analyses, but the year with the most burned area occurred after drier-than-average periods. In the SSPMNP data, there was no correlation between burned area and proportion of high severity fire; we interpreted this to mean that differences in fuels in SSPMNP were more important to fire behavior than weather conditions. The SSPMNP continues to burn at very low severities, even after 30 years of effective suppression of lightning-ignited fires. This is in stark contrast to similar forests in Alta California, which are experiencing fires of sizes and severities that fall far outside the historical range of variation. Current fire severities in the SSPMNP are very similar to the levels of severity described for Alta California YPMC forests before Euro-American settlement. Nonetheless, fire suppression policies in Mexican national parks in northern Baja California are causing increases in forest fuels and may be the cause of recent increases in high severity patch size. Current wildfire trends in YPMC forests in Alta California should serve as a warning to Mexican managers that continued fire exclusion in the Baja California YPMC forests is a recipe for ecological disaster in these unique and important ecosystems.

Protected area governance in Sweden: new modes of governance or business as usual?

ABSTRACTThis paper explores whether ambitions to open up the traditional Swedish model of top-down conservation methods to local influences are indicative of an actual transition in governance of Swedish national park policy (NPP), and examines whether such a shift entails an increase in local influence over local interests and needs. Methodologically, we analyse a combination of governance types and incorporate theoretical definitions of power and accountability. The establishment of new governance arrangements – where power is shared, interactions promoted and accountability is directed downwards – indicates that Sweden's NPP is undergoing a change in its mode of governance. This change also seems to include ceding some influence to local interests, and the possibility of combining conservation with the utilisation of certain natural resources. The results of our research also provide valuable insights into when the establishment of shared-governance arrangements are likely to succeed; in short, this seems more likely when there are established sectors sited in a robust legal framework and where strong international commitments potentially play a role. In conclusion, we contend that when seeking diversified governance arrangements it is not enough simply to take local practices and customs into consideration – they have to be strengthened.

Creating Conditions for Policy Change in National Parks: Contrasting Cases in Yellowstone and Yosemite.

Public agencies face significant political obstacles when they try to change long-standing policies. This paper examines efforts by the U.S. National Park Service to change long-term policies in Yellowstone and Yosemite national parks. We argue that, to be successful, the agency and pro-change allies must expand the sphere of conflict to engage the support of the broader American public through positive framing, supportive science, compelling economic arguments, consistent goals, and the commitment of other institutional actors. We show that the agency is capable of creating these conditions, as in the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone, but we argue that this is not always the outcome, as in reducing automobile congestion in Yosemite Valley.

Modeling the Response to Paid on Street Parking Policy for Two Wheelers and Four Wheelers on Busy Urban Streets of CBD Area – A Case Study of Surat City

Parking policy is one of the most powerful means and integral part of modern urban planning strategies which urban planners and policy makers can use to manage travel demand and traffic in city centers. For parking policies to be truly valuable and effective, they should be carefully integrated into a transport development plan aiming to achieve the long term targets of sustainable mobility. The study presented in this paper analyzed descriptive and statistical models to estimate the likely response to two proposed parking policy alternatives framed on the guidelines of “NUTP 2006” for on street parking around the city center of Surat, Gujarat. The city centers have mixed land use pattern with limited availability of off street parking facility and high potential of visitors for shopping. Very poor turnover of vehicles was observed on all the selected six routes of CBD area from 12 hour during on street parking inventory survey by License Plate method. About 50% illegal parking of two wheelers was observed during peak demand which causes spillover of parked vehicles almost whole day. The parking policy alternatives proposed were (i) time restraint policy (progressive parking charge policy) and (ii) space restraint policy with priority parking to emergency vehicles like ambulance, fire brigade or handicapped persons etc. The models derived were based on the response of city visitors to a road side field questionnaire survey. 600 samples were collected from all six routes of study area. Two logistic regression models, binary and multinomial were estimated for two wheelers and four wheelers separately. The results of binary models for both two wheelers and four wheelers shows that duration of parking is most significant attribute in deciding the response to both parking policy. For multinomial model the dominant variables observed were parking duration and travel time for two wheelers & four wheelers.

Analysis of Illegal Parking Behavior in Jeddah

Parking spaces play a vital role in the transportation system. Parking policies ensure the efficient of the transportation system and the management of traffic demand. Illegal parking practice can hamper sustainability of transportation system. This paper attempts to analyze the illegal parking behavior in Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. Car parking in the city of Jeddah is largely uncontrolled and there is a lack of management of the public parking supply and controlled parking system. Parking survey at five main locations (roads) at Jeddah city was conducted. Legal and illegal parking were observed at the five roads. The observations were distributed over three time periods: 7:00-9:00 am period (morning peak), 12:00-15:00 pm period (afternoon peak) and 18:00-21:00 pm period (evening peak). The observations were collected, studied and compared for weekdays and weekend. Results indicate that illegal parking seems to be common in Jeddah city both on weekdays and weekend hampering the sustainability of transportation system. It is crucial for Jeddah city to deploy stringent parking policies in order to reduce the consequences of illegal parking behavior and to achieve sustainability in transportation.

The Politics of Decarbonisation – A Case Study

Decarbonising our economies is one of the great challenges of our time. The Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive 2014/94/EU aims at mitigating the environmental impact of transport and presents one element to tackle the challenge of transport decarbonisation by focussing on necessary policy measures to further the market for alternative fuels in transport and infrastructure build-up for alternative fuels. In this case study we report on the processes accompanying its national implementation in Austria which needs to cover a variety of national, regional and local-level legislation. We show results of an Austrian-wide public consultation as well as regional workshops. In order to achieve a more ambitious take up of energy efficient vehicles strategic European objectives on cleaner transport need to trickle down to mundane areas such as building codes, permission procedures for infrastructure build-up and parking policy, which in turn requires new tools for effective multi-level governance.