Parking Space Constraints Research Articles

Is It Necessarily Better for More Commuters to Share a Vehicle?

Increasing private car ownership has congested urban roads and made parking more difficult, especially during the morning commute. Carpooling offers a new way to address these problems. This paper studies the dynamic departure patterns for both regular and carpooling vehicles with parking space constraints in the morning commute without the carpool lane. The results suggest that as the parking fee of the central cluster increases, the earliest time for the two types of vehicles to enter the central cluster is delayed. The increase in the proportion of regular vehicles delays the earliest time for carpooling vehicles to enter the central cluster. More commuters sharing a vehicle in the morning commute is not necessarily better. Only a reasonable level of carpooling can reduce the peak time and unnecessary time consumption on the road and effectively promote the reduction in parking fees, commuters’ travel costs, and other societal transportation costs. This research gives practical guidance and suggestions on formulating a reasonable parking fee and controlling a reasonable carpooling level.

Manage morning commute for household travels with parking space constraints

Parking has always been a thorny problem in urban transport systems. Parking availability and parking reservation management may have a significant influence on the travel behavior of household travelers. This paper explores the morning commute for household travels by considering parking space constraint and the parking reservation mechanism in a two-mode transport system. Household travelers depart from home to their children’s school by car or by rail and then go to work alone. For household travelers who drive, some household travelers have reserved parking spaces while other household travelers must compete for public ones on a first-come-first-served (FCFS) basis. When household travelers do not have a parking spot, they use rail transit for their commute. We derive ten equilibrium departure patterns based on the school-work time difference, the number of parking spots and the ratio of reserved parking spots. With these equilibrium departure patterns, we thoroughly discuss the impact of school-work time difference on the total travel cost of auto travelers and parking reservation ratio. It is found that, given the school-work time difference, appropriate parking reservation allocation can minimize the total system travel cost. Then, the system performance, including total system travel cost and total congestion cost, is examined by regulating the parking supply, the parking reservation allocation and the school-work time difference. We found that there is a unique optimal parking supply to minimize the total system travel cost, and appropriate staggering policy can alleviate traffic congestion and thus improves social welfare. Finally, numerical analysis is conducted to verify the findings, and the Pareto frontier for system performance is analyzed. Traffic authorities can select the optimal solution based on the preferences of traffic indicators to develop effective strategies to manage morning commuting of household travels with parking space constraint. The study demonstrates that implementing reasonable staggering policy and efficient parking management can effectively promote efficiency of urban morning commuting systems and reduce social costs for household travelers.

Multi-modal morning commute with endogenous shared autonomous vehicle penetration considering parking space constraint

Autonomous vehicles are poised to generate revolutionary impact on urban mobility and parking availability. This study aims to model the morning commute dynamics in a multi-modal transportation system and examine how to regulate the market in the presence of parking space constraint and shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs). Other than the SAVs, commuters can also choose to take regular vehicles (RVs) or public transit (PT) to travel from home to workplace. SAVs will compete the bottleneck capacity with RVs. The dynamic departure patterns and endogenous penetration rate of SAVs are determined depending on parking supply and other related factors. The conditions for various portfolios of travel modes are derived in details. Analytical propositions, numerical examples, as well as policy implications are given with respect to different market factors such as the additional SAV cost, and parking supply. The results show that there are two possible system optimal solutions depending on the value of transit fare. When the transit fare is low, the system optimum occurs in Scenario CS II&III, wherein all three travel modes are used, the first SAV commuter arrives at the bottleneck just when the last RV commuter leaves, and the parking supply and the additional SAV cost should be controlled to a suitable value; when the transit fare is relatively high, the system optimum appears in Scenario IV, an extreme scenario wherein the parking supply is zero, and only the travel modes of PT and SAVs are used. This paper is helpful in quantifying the impacts of new vehicle technologies and shedding lights on future mobility and parking management.

Is India Financing Urban Transport in the Right Direction?

Transport issues in urban centers are rising at an exponential rate and are characterized by congestion, high motorized vehicles growth, vehicular and noise pollution, road accidents and parking space constraints. Present public transport and Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) modes are inefficient and do not cater to the needs of 31.23% of urbanized population in India, which is poised to grow up to 71% by 2031 (MoUD, 2015). Lack of accessibility in public transport and NMT has compelled commuters to opt for private transport modes such as twowheelers and cars, in order to have access to work, education and other leisure activities. The paper aims to assess the finances allocated to urban transport system in the city of Pune under the jurisdiction of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The authors intend to critically review the city budget and its contribution to sustainable modes of urban transport. The key research questions are: - a) whether the budget distributes enough revenue to enhance the efficiency and accessibility of public transport modes and NMT as guided in the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) of 2006? b) does the local government continue to invest in temporary urban transport solutions catering to the needs of private modes of transportation? The results further show that PMC’s budget allocation is not favoring sustainable modes of transport as much as it is catering to other urban transport infrastructure and utilities. The paper concludes with recommendation on ways of innovative financing methods to make public transport sustainable and discusses various case studies of best practices followed globally pertaining to sustainable urban transport system.

Is India Financing Urban Transport in the Right Direction

Transport issues in urban centers are rising at an exponential rate and are characterized by congestion, high motorized vehicles growth, vehicular and noise pollution, road accidents and parking space constraints. Present public transport and Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) modes are inefficient and do not cater to the needs of 31.23% of urbanized population in India, which is poised to grow up to 71% by 2031 (MoUD, 2015). Lack of accessibility in public transport and NMT has compelled commuters to opt for private transport modes such as two-wheelers and cars, in order to have access to work, education and other leisure activities. The paper aims to assess the finances allocated to urban transport system in the city of Pune under the jurisdiction of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The authors intend to critically review the city budget and its contribution to sustainable modes of urban transport. The key research questions are: - a) whether the budget distributes enough revenue to enhance the efficiency and accessibility of public transport modes and NMT as guided in the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) of 2006? b) does the local government continue to invest in temporary urban transport solutions catering to the needs of private modes of transportation? The research is based on secondary budget data of the year 2016-17 and the data so collected, has been analyzed on various financial parameters. The results show that PMC’s budget allocation is not favoring sustainable modes of transport as much as it is catering to other urban transport infrastructure and utilities. The study thereby suggests sufficient allocation of the city’s budget towards the creation of sustainable transportation. Lastly, the paper concludes with recommendation on ways of innovative financing methods to make public transport, sustainable and discusses various case studies of best practices followed globally pertaining to sustainable urban transport system.

The morning commute problem with endogenous shared autonomous vehicle penetration and parking space constraint

Morning commuting trips commonly involve a number of transportation modes and departure times. This study extends the standard bottleneck model by considering both regular and shared autonomous vehicles with and without parking space constraint, taking into account the travel time-dependent fuel cost that is associated with each vehicle. In this study the parking space constraint has no effect on shared autonomous vehicles and only commuters who share autonomous vehicles exhibit ridesharing behavior, differing from those utilizing regular vehicles. The dynamic departure patterns and endogenous penetration rates associated with shared autonomous vehicles are determined with respect to parking capacity. Analytical results not only provide several important propositions, but also include the optimal solutions for parking capacity and ridesharing occupancy from the perspective of the system optimum in terms of various indicators, under which parking capacity is a binding constraint, and the first shared autonomous vehicle arrives at the bottleneck as the last regular vehicle leaves. This work is expected not only to motivate related research, but also to promote the development of new strategies and methods for allocating a limited number of parking spaces and regulating the travel behavior of commuters in urban areas.

Tradable permit schemes for managing morning commute with carpool under parking space constraint

This paper proposes two tradable parking permit schemes for managing the morning commute with three alternative modes, i.e., transit, driving alone and carpool, under the parking space constraint at destination. The commuting equilibrium and system-optimal distributions of parking permits are further investigated in a many-to-one multi-modal network setting. It is found that the prices of parking permits, regardless of whether the trip is completed as a carpool or not, decrease with the parking supply, and the price for a solo driver to pay is larger than that a carpooler should pay. Furthermore, the tradable undifferentiated parking permit scheme with a uniform price is more efficient than the tradable differentiated parking permit scheme for solo-driving and carpool vehicles, but the former significantly changes the permit-holding order of solo drivers and carpoolers when the parking supply is relatively low.

Morning commute problem with supply management considering parking and ride-sourcing

Managing morning commute traffic through parking provision management has been well studied in the literature. One conventional assumption made in most previous studies is that all commuters require parking spaces at CBD area. However, in recent years, due to technological advancements and low market entry barrier, more and more e-dispatch FHVs (eFHVs) are provided in service. The rapidly growing eFHVs, on one hand, supply substantial trip services and complete the trips requiring no parking demand; on the other hand, imposes congestion effects on all commuters. In this study, we investigate the morning commute problem with bottleneck congestion and parking space constraints in the presence of ride-sourcing service. The within-day dynamic equilibrium and its travel pattern are examined. Meanwhile, we explore the optimal supply of parking spaces and ride-sourcing services to best manage the commute traffic. To minimize system total travel costs, the optimal quantity control of parking spaces and eFHVs is determined, which indeed addresses a critical issue on how to regulate the supply of eFHVs.

On the morning commute problem with carpooling behavior under parking space constraint

Morning commuters choose their departure times and travel modes based on a combinational evaluation of factors associated with the chances of running into bottleneck congestion, likely schedule delays, parking space availability as well as monetary costs of traveling and parking. This study investigates a morning commute problem with carpooling behavior under parking space constraint at destination. We consider such a scenario that as a competing mode of the transit line, the highway contains a carpool lane only used by carpoolers while all solo drivers are forced to use a general purpose (GP) lane. Unlike the standard bottleneck model, the rush-hour dynamic departure patterns with a binding parking supply vary with the relative proportion of the two lanes’ capacities. The possible departure pattern domain with different parking supply and lane capacity allocation is explored in terms of the relative extra carpool cost and distinguished between the bi-mode and multi-mode equilibria. It is found that compared with solo drivers, carpoolers have shorter rush hour in order to smooth the extra carpool cost. With the decrease of parking spots, the number of solo drivers cuts down gradually, whilst the number of carpoolers climbs up firstly and then declines in the multi-mode system. Under mild assumptions, the best system performance can be realized with the joint consideration of total travel cost and vehicle emission cost through optimizing the lane capacity allocation and the parking supply.

Managing morning commute with parking space constraints in the case of a bi-modal many-to-one network

Recently, some studies examined how downtown parking space limitation re-shapes the morning commute in the case of a single origin–destination network. This paper further formulates and analyses the commuting equilibrium problem of both mode and departure time choices in a bi-modal (auto and public transit) many-to-one network. Several properties of the equilibrium under parking space constraints and the proposed parking reservation system are discussed. Procedures for computing the dynamic user equilibrium with a parking space constraint (either trading of reservations is allowed or not) have been developed. We show that parking reservation can help reduce deadweight loss due to parking competition and roadway congestion. We also found that assigning more reservations to travellers from a specific origin does not necessarily reduce total travel cost of them, while doing so might raise the total travel cost of travellers from other origins. When parking supply is less than the potential demand but is relatively large, it is socially preferred to retain some parking spaces open for competition. However, when the total parking supply is relatively small, all parking spaces should be reserved to travellers. Besides, we show that trading of reservations among travellers would yield an efficiency loss. This loss can be fairly large thus trading should be prohibited.

Optimal Parking Pricing in Many-to-One Park-and-Ride Network with Parking Space Constraints

This paper investigates an optimal parking pricing problem in a many-to-one (multiple origins to one destination) park-and-ride (P + R) network, taking into account practical parking space constraints. The proposed problem aims to minimize the total travel cost by setting optimal parking fees at P + R terminals. The problem is formulated as a bilevel programming model that comprises an upper-level problem of determining optimal parking fees and a lower-level problem of characterizing commuters’ travel equilibrium of departure time and path choices. For the lower-level problem, a user equilibrium model is developed to address the commuting patterns with and without parking space constraints in the many-to-one P + R network. In the commute equilibrium analysis, extra earlier departure times, defined by slack variables, are introduced to examine the conditions in which commuters need to compete for limited parking spots. Meanwhile, the parking spot ending time is used to describe how commuters from different origins compete with one another for the limited parking spots at the destination. Finally, numerical experiments show that the methods proposed in this study are effective in managing the P + R facilities.

Expirable parking reservations for managing morning commute with parking space constraints

When total parking supply in an urban downtown area is insufficient, morning commuters would choose their departure times not only to trade off bottleneck congestion and schedule delays, but also to secure a parking space. Recent studies found that an appropriate combination of reserved and unreserved parking spaces can spread the departures of those morning commuters and hence reduce their total travel cost. To further mitigate both traffic congestion and social cost from competition for parking, this study considers a parking reservation scheme with expiration times, where commuters with a parking reservation have to arrive at parking spaces for the reservation before a predetermined expiration time. We first show that if all parking reservations have the same expiration time, it is socially preferable to set the reservations to be non-expirable, i.e., without expiration time. However, if differentiated expiration times are properly designed, the total travel cost can be further reduced as compared with the reservation scheme without expiration time, since the peak will be further smoothed out. We explore socially desirable equilibrium flow patterns under the parking reservation scheme with differentiated expiration times. Finally, efficiencies of the reservation schemes are examined.

Park-and-Ride Network Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Commuters and Parking Space Constraint

A dynamic user equilibrium (DUE) model of heterogeneous commuters’ travel choice behaviors including departure time and path and travel mode choices in a schematic park-and-ride network is developed. Commuters have three transportation modes to choose from in a peak period: private car, rail transit, and a combination of private car and rail transit (i.e., an intermodal transportation mode). Two types of DUE patterns are derived with and without the parking space constraint. In this study, an optimal park-and-ride parking fee scheme is proposed: commuters’ travel choice behaviors are characterized by the developed trimodal multiclass DUE model. The optimal park-and-ride parking fee scheme is formulated as a bilevel program in which the upper-level problem is to find the optimal parking fee for improving network performance and the lower-level problem is to evaluate network performance in equilibrium. Because the DUE solution may not be unique, the authors aim to improve the network performance in the worst and best cases. Through numerical tests, it is demonstrated that the parking space constraint has a significant influence on the departure and route choices of commuters and should be considered as an important factor in park-and-ride commuting pattern analysis and parking fee management in order to avoid a misleading decision.

On the morning commute problem with bottleneck congestion and parking space constraints

Morning commuters choose their departure times based on a combination of factors—the chances of running into bottleneck congestion, the likely schedule delays, and parking space availability. This study investigates the morning commute problem with both bottleneck congestion and parking space constraints. In particular, it considers the situation when some commuters have reserved parking spots while others have to compete for public ones on a first-come-first-served basis. Unlike the traditional pure bottleneck model, the rush-hour dynamic traffic pattern with a binding parking capacity constraint varies with the relative proportions of the two classes of commuters. It is found that an appropriate combination of reserved and unreserved parking spots can temporally relieve traffic congestion at the bottleneck and hence reduce the total system cost, because commuters without a reserved parking spot are compelled to leave home earlier in order to secure a public parking spot. System performance is quantified in terms of the relative proportions of the two classes of commuters and is compared with those in the extreme cases when all auto commuters have to compete for parking and when none of them have to compete for one.

Maximum car ownership under constraints of road capacity and parking space

This paper presents a model for determining the maximum number of cars by zones in view of the capacity of the road network and the number of parking spaces available. In other words, the proposed model is to examine whether existing road network and parking supply is capable of accommodating future zonal car ownership growth (or the reserve capacity in each zone); i.e. the potential maximum zonal car ownership growth that generates the road traffic within the network capacity and parking space constraints. In the proposed model, the vehicular trip production and attraction are dependent on the car ownership, available parking spaces and the accessibility measures by traffic zones. The model is formulated as a bi-level programming problem. The lower-level problem is an equilibrium trip distribution/assignment problem, while the upper-level problem is to maximize the sum of zonal car ownership by considering travellers’ route and destination choice behaviour and satisfying the network capacity and parking space constraints. A sensitivity analysis based heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the proposed bi-level car ownership problem and is illustrated with a numerical example.