Private Parking Research Articles

IoT-Enabled Parking Space Sharing and Allocation Mechanisms

This paper is among the first proposing an integrated auction and market design method for the parking space sharing and allocation problem. Drivers (agents) who fail to exchange their own parking spaces can then rent them to the platform. The platform receives private parking spaces from agents and manages some public parking spaces. We first develop the urban parking management cloud platform through Internet of Things. Based on this systemic framework, parking spaces are shared among agents via a price-compatible top trading cycles and chains (PC-TTCCs) mechanism and the platform's parking spaces are reassigned via a one-sided Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (O-VCG) auction. Both the PC-TTCC mechanism with rule e (PC-TTCC [e]) and O-VCG auction are effective in terms of strategy-proofness and (allocative or Pareto) efficiency. In the PC-TTCC [e] mechanism, the platform's payment rule used in private parking space sharing is determined based on historical O-VCG auction prices. Our experimental results further show that the proposed mechanism results in system profitability of 20%-30% and ex post budget balance for the platform.

Substitution and complementarity patterns between traditional transport means and car sharing: a person and trip level analysis

Car sharing is a new transport mode which combines characteristics of private and collective traditional transport means. Understanding the relationship of this mode with existing ones is very important for policy makers to create an efficient transport system and to properly address public resources. This paper aims to analyze the interaction of car sharing with the existing offer of competing modes, using data from a specific travel survey administered in the city of Turin, where both free-floating and one-way station based car sharing services are offered. All transport modes operating in the study area were considered. Bivariate models were estimated to study the propensity to have a car sharing subscription and the substitution patterns between different travel means for a representative random sample of trips taken by the Turin population. Results show that the current car sharing system is perceived as efficient and useful; car sharing members are young males, living in high-income and low-size household with, in particular, a high number of workers and low number of available cars; moreover, the presence of private parking near home has a strong negative impact. There is evidence that car sharing can substitute car driving trips, while the evidence that the same can happen with biking and walking trips is not supported by models but only marginally seen from descriptive statistics. There is also some complementarity between car sharing and public transport and a strong complementarity between car sharing and bike sharing, so that policy makers should jointly promote those modes.

Enhancing the Charging Process of Electric Vehicles at Residential Homes

It is essential to establish smart and efficient charging strategies for electric vehicles, due to the increase of their sales, and especially taking into account that many of these vehicles will be recharged in private parking lots, where the charging point features are limited. In this paper, we propose four different charging methods: the cheapest, the cheapest starting, the low cost, and the last period schemes, as an alternative to the traditional plug and charge method. Our objective is to find better strategies for an automatic, efficient, and scheduled electric vehicles’ charging process, avoiding peak power demands, and promoting recharges at off-peak hours, where electricity prices are low. According to this, a smart charger could use our proposed methods to enhance the charging process at residential homes. To assess our proposal, we simulate the battery recharging of 1 000 vehicles per day during a full year, considering the use of domestic electrical plugs, and real electricity pricing. In Addition, three different scenarios have been simulated: 1) a regular-demand scenario; 2) a high-demand scenario; and 3) an extra-demand scenario, in which the vehicles arrive with an average battery level of only 25%. Simulation results confirm that using our charging methods, we can save between 46.9% to 75.2% in terms of electricity fee while maintaining similar battery levels after the charging process.

Introducing a New Idea: Severance of Public Parking in Iran

In 1902, Mozafaredin Shah was familiar with the car on his trip to Europe and brought two cars to Iran. Gradually more cars were brought into the country. Since 1921, the body of Iran's major cities was affected by movement of vehicles. Nowadays, the unbridled use of cars affects Iran's urban management, particularly in cities with a population of more than fifty thousand persons. In addition to the many advantages, the vehicle presence in Iranian cities sometimes has negative consequences. Traffic, noise and air pollution are inevitable disadvantages. Lack of public and private parking is a serious issue for those involved in planning and urban management in Iran, leading to social and economic costs. Lack of parking in Iranian cities is affected by cultural and economic factors and administrative structures. The creation of public parking will not be improved without modification of the factors. Hence, this study introduces a new idea based on the reform approach which resolves a significant part of the problems. This idea is based on the revision and reform of registration rules. A corrective action in the event of operational supports leads to improving the construction of public parking. This new idea provides the severance of public parking and the possibility of issuing the entire document for each unit of parking.

Examining car guarding as a livelihood in the informal sector

Car guarding is a distinctly South African informal sector employment activity. A car guard offers to guard vehicles in a public or private parking area for a donation. Car guarding enables an unemployed person to earn some income. The purpose of this study is to examine car guarding as a livelihood in the informal sector. This study interviews 30 car guards at six different locations in Durban, South Africa. It examines their demographic characteristics, income, education and skills, risks and challenges faced, and the opinion of car guards regarding their livelihood. The average car guard worked six days per week and an average of nine hours per day. The average income per hour ranged from ZAR4.64 to ZAR30. Average daily incomes ranged from ZAR50 to ZAR350. Car guarding is a high risk activity that includes health risks, and risks of verbal abuse and violence.

Cooperative Charging in Residential Areas

Electric vehicles (EVs) require a well-developed charging infrastructure. Particularly when used for the daily commute, most EV drivers will rely on a nightly charge in their garage, for instance. In typical European urban residential areas, however, private parking and charging resources are severely limited. Therefore, public on-street charging often is the only option. However, it faces several limitations that lead to an inefficient and unfair utilization of charging stations, or EV supply equipment (EVSE). For instance, EVSEs are often blocked by fully charged vehicles. We thus propose and evaluate a cooperative protocol for EVs that facilitates coordinated handovers of EVSEs. We integrate this protocol with the ISO 15118 standard and provide a detailed security analysis. In the evaluation, we show that coordinated handovers significantly improve both EVSE utilization (helping to amortize the expensive operating costs) and provide benefits for EV owners by providing sufficient charging resources. This reduces range anxiety and saves them from cruising for charging.

A Dynamic Information-Based Parking Guidance for Megacities considering Both Public and Private Parking

The constantly increasing number of cars in the megacities is causing severe parking problems. To resolve this problem, many cities adopt parking guidance system as a part of intelligent transportation system (ITS). However, the current parking guidance system stays in its infant stage since the obtainable information is limited. To enhance parking management in the megacity and to provide better parking guidance to drivers, this study introduces an intelligent parking guidance system and proposes a new methodology to operate it. The introduced system considers both public parking and private parking so that it is designed to maximize the use of spatial resources of the city. The proposed methodology is based on the dynamic information related parking in the city and suggests the best parking space to each driver. To do this, two kinds of utility functions which assess parking spaces are developed. Using the proposed methodology, different types of parking management policies are tested through the simulation. According to the experimental test, it is shown that the centrally managed parking guidance can give better results than individually preferred parking guidance. The simulation test proves that both a driver’s benefits and parking management of a city from various points of view can be improved by using the proposed methodology.

Perspective on an urban transportation strategy with BRT for developing cities

A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system is one of the best strategies for urban transportation, especially in developing cities, mainly because of its cost-efficiency. Starting from Curitiba, Brazil in 1974, including Bogota, Colombia in 1999, many cities in Latin American Countries have implemented a BRT system. In almost all cases, BRT systems are working as a reliable high capacity service. In some cases, BRT systems are well coordinated with an urban transportation strategy framework and/or an urban planning strategy framework, integrating other transportation modes and land uses. Alternatively, there have been very few cases of BRT systems in Southeast Asian countries. Many cities considering implementation of BRT systems do not consider other urban transportation strategies such as Transit Oriented Development (TOD). The objective of the paper is to discuss the perspective of a BRT for developing cities. First, the paper reviews the history of BRT systems followed by a field survey of the results in Curitiba, mainly from an urban transportation and planning strategy point of view. Second, multimodal and inter-modal aspects are discussed, where the relationship with city buses, a balance between private car use and parking policies are emphasized. Third a framework of urban bus planning, management and operation is discussed considering the roles of public and private sectors based on the experiences of several developed cities. Finally, in terms of an urban planning strategy, reviewing the original and applied concepts of TOD, the authors discuss how a TOD strategy could work with BRT systems. The authors address the possibilities and limitations of BRT systems, especially in developing cities. More specific implications are presented in the case of medium sized cities of Southeast Asian countries.

共享型智能车位锁的设计及其应用流程

随着经济的发展，私人汽车的数量暴增，公共停车位的数量严重短缺与大量私人停车位空闲的现象并存。因此提出了一种基于手机APP来进行应用的共享型智能车位锁，以缓解停车位需求与供给之间的矛盾，并对共享型智能车位锁的操作流程进行了简单的介绍。 With the development of the economy, the number of private cars has exploded, and the number of public parking spaces is very short and there are lots of private parking spaces. So a shared smart parking lock is proposed based on a mobile phone APP, to alleviate the contradiction be-tween parking demand and supply. This article makes a brief introduction to the operation flow of the shared smart parking lock.

Private parking slot sharing

This paper addresses the private parking slot sharing problem during regular working hours in a big city. Our results extend the existing market design theory so that money flow is allowed in the matching mechanisms. We consider two cases of money flow: (i) one agent who fails to exchange his parking slot can join the leasing mechanism as a lessor; and (ii) one agent who fails in parking slot exchange can always “transfer” (rent) his parking slots to the platform. Each agent is self-interested. We propose the (price-compatible) top trading cycles and deals (TTCD) mechanism for case (i) and the price-compatible top trading cycles and chains (PC-TTCC) mechanism for case (ii). Both mechanisms are effective in terms of the compatibility with money flow, agents’ welfare, and strategy-proofness. Our experimental results further show that the proposed mechanisms would result in remarkable social welfare, and (ex post) budget balance for the platform in a big city with large population. In some realistic settings, our proposed mechanisms can almost realize cost saving of 60% and make more than 50% of agents strictly better off. There is no private parking slot sharing in the benchmark case. Overall, this paper opens the door to the solutions of a host of price-compatible matching problems.

A simple reservation and allocation model of shared parking lots

With increasing auto demands, efficient parking management is by no means less important than road traffic congestion control. This is due to shortages of parking spaces within the limited land areas of the city centers in many metropolises. The parking problem becomes an integrated part of traffic planning and management. On the other hand, it is a fact that many private parking spots are available during daytime in nearby residential compound because those residents drive their cars out to work. These temporarily vacant parking lots can be efficiently utilized to meet the parking demand of other drivers who are working at nearby locations or drivers who come for shopping or other activities. This paper proposes a framework and a simple model for embracing shared use of residential parking spaces between residents and public users. The proposed shared use is a winning strategy because it maximizes the use of private resources to benefit the community as a whole. It also creates a new business model enabled by the fast-growing mobile apps in our daily lives.

Coordinated charge management for battery electric vehicles

Compared to refueling gasoline powered vehicles, the charging of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) takes considerably more time which renders a single-purpose charging infrastructure inconvenient. More likely, the charging stations will be integrated into the parking infrastructure (parking decks, public, private and commercial parking sites). On average the duration of the parking will be longer than the duration of the charging process which creates a potential for load shifting. In turn this implies that the rated power of large charging infrastructures can be chosen to be smaller than the sum of rated powers of all charging points, provided that the load shifting potential can be activated. In this paper a complete description of the problem at hand is given in terms of a mixed integer linear program which can readily be integrated into the operation management of charging infrastructures. It allows to coordinate the charging processes of multiple BEVs to fully exploit the load shifting potential while taking into account the limitations of the distribution grid, the charging infrastructure, and the BEVs. In addition to ensuring the safety of the operation, the objective of the optimization can be adapted to set use-case specific incentives.

Parking Spaces Repurchase Strategy Design via Simulation Optimization

Because of the rapid increase of vehicle numbers and land values, there is an increasing shortage in the supply of parking facilities in many cities. In many parking lots, residential drivers bought private parking spaces with high prices to ensure that they have spaces to park at any time. Recently, some parking lot operation companies plan to temporally repurchase a few private parking spaces back during certain time periods in a day and sell these places to public users to fully utilize the limited parking resources. How to choose the repurchase amounts and stopping time so as to maximize the profit then becomes an important problem. To solve this problem, a Gaussian mixture model is first proposed in this article to describe the time-varying arriving/departing behaviors of drivers and meanwhile the stochastic constraints of the profit maximization problem. Then, the expected optimal repurchase amounts and stopping time are estimated via simulation optimization. This new approach not only provides a useful statistical tool for parking spaces modeling but also overcomes several key limitations of current queuing based methodologies. Particularly, it emphasizes how to model drivers' behaviors on a small time-scale and explains the resulting benefits.

울산시 거주자의 녹색주차사업에 대한 기대특성

The aim of the green parking project is to resolve the parking problem in the residential areas by preventing the deterioration of residential conditions from illegally parked vehicles in the street. The project is based on the residents' participation and cooperation in creating private parking spaces and green space by breaking down the property walls. However, the performance rate in the provincial areas is low. The purpose of this study is to investigate the positive expectations and aspects of concern about the green parking project. The objects of the study were 129 residents in Ulsan who had no previous experience of the project. For analysis, the frequency and means were calculated, and factor analysis and analysis of variance were performed. The results showed, first, that the residents tend to prefer the open wall type. So it will be necessary to improve awareness of the green parking project by mentioning the many environmental and social merits of removing the walls. Second, the subjects are concerned about residential safety ; they have especially high anxiety about privacy and home security. So it will also be necessary to take security measures such as CCTVs in the street and providing a pedestrian-friendly environment. Third, people expect environmental changes, but they feel the burden of maintenance costs of the parking space and open yard. They also worry about noise and dust. However, according to previous research, people participating in the green parking project did not experience such problems, so the local government needs to examine ways to prevent citizens' negative prejudices against the green parking project.

Applying lean production principles to facilities design of ramp-up factories

Purpose – This study aims to examine how lean production principles (LPP) can be incorporated in the context of ramp-up factories to improve future ramp-up factory designs. The application of LPP to the facilities design of ramp-up factories can help to reduce waste and achieve higher-quality products. However, the traditional design philosophy of “design follows function” has not considered the application of LPP during the early design development stage to more effectively meet tenants’ operational needs at the occupation stage. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a review of past literature, a set of LPP-driven facilities design features is presented, which seek to integrate traditional design principles and LPP. A survey was subsequently carried out with tenants operating in ramp-up factories to determine the relevance of the proposed LPP-driven facilities design features from their perspectives. Findings – It is found that generally most of the proposed LPP-driven facilities design features can help to improve tenants’ operational needs after the building is occupied. The study found that the significant LPP-driven facilities design features for ramp-up factories include: large span, clear floor-to-ceiling height, rectangular bay, wide frontage area, mezzanine floor system, evenly distributed lighting, white or light colour surfaces, private parking spaces, private loading/unloading bay, clearly defined car park entrance, wide vehicular ramp, wide driveway, sheltered loading/unloading bay and multi-storey car park embedded in the complex. The reasons for their significance are explained in the study. Practical implications – The LPP design model for ramp-up factories provides a useful checklist of important tenants’ requirements for the designers of ramp-up factories. This research also suggests that it is desirable to apply LPP in the design stage to improve the facilities design of ramp-up factories that is beneficial to tenants at the occupation stage. Originality/value – This research formulated a design model integrated with LPP for ramp-up factories. It extends the traditional design approach of “design follows function” to encompass LPP to transform the approach to a new LPP-driven facilities design philosophy. This new approach serves to better meet tenants’ requirements at the occupation stage. It is recommended that architecture schools incorporate the LPP-driven facilities design approach as one of their educational outcomes.

A user equilibrium, traffic assignment model of network route and parking lot choice, with search circuits and cruising flows

The paper provides a novel network model of parking and route choice. Parking supply is represented by parking type, management strategy including the fare, capacity and occupancy rate of parking lot, and network location, in relation to access routes along the roadway network. Trip demand is segmented according to origin–destination pair, the disposal of private parking facilities and the individual preferences for parking quality of service. Each traveller is assumed to make a two stage choice of, first, network route on the basis of the expected cost of route and parking and, second, local diversion on the basis of a discrete choice model. Search circuits are explicitly considered on the basis of the success probability to get a slot at a given lot and of the transition probabilities between lots in case of failure.The basic endogenous model variables are the route flows, the lot success probabilities and the transition probabilities between lots. These give rise to the cost of a travel route up to a target lot and to the expected cost of search and park from that lot to the destination. Traffic equilibrium is defined in a static setting. It is characterized by a mixed problem of variational inequality and fixed point. Equilibrium is shown to exist under mild conditions and a Method of Successive Averages is put forward to solve for it. Lastly, a planning instance is given to illustrate the effects of insufficient parking capacity on travel costs and network flows.

Research on improvement of system for automatic line stripe removal using dry ice blaster

All roadways, bike lanes, parking lots, and private parking areas are designated for drivers using painted line stripes. This line striping is an important traffic element for safety and the proper flow of vehicles. These lines have to be repainted for various reasons such as expansion and line changes, which make it necessary to remove the existing line stripes in advance. However, the current line stripe removal process is both labor intensive and time consuming, if it employs a conventional grinding type machine. The necessary manual tasks involve various dangers, including traffic accidents and the explosion of the harmful gas that is used for finalizing the removal process. Accordingly, an automatic line stripe removal system was developed in order to improve this line stripe removal process. But previous studies have remained on the basic research stages, confirming the potential for this automatic line stripe removal system. Therefore, this study is aimed at improving the system and process used in the traditional line stripe removal system. Also, this study is aimed at enhancing performance and features of the previous system and developing the concept for an automated system to improve the line stripe removal efficiency.

Geração de viagens em estacionamentos: o caso do centro de Niterói

Este artigo pretende estabelecer equações e taxas de geração de viagens em estacionamentos localizados em áreas centrais, com base na metodologia tradicional adotada pelo Institute of Transportation Engineers - ITE, a partir dos dados levantados em 29 estabelecimentos privados de uso público existentes no centro da cidade de Niterói-RJ. Os resultados encontrados se mostraram consistentes de acordo com as estatísticas encontradas e os parâmetros exigidos na bibliografia. Além disto, foram estabelecidas relações entre as taxas de geração de viagens e variáveis que poderiam influenciá-la, como: o percentual de vagas rotativas; o tempo médio de permanência; o preço; a taxa de ocupação média e o porte dos estacionamentos. Tais resultados contribuem para a concepção de políticas de estacionamento mais adequadas e compatíveis com uma mobilidade orientada às modalidades menos agressivas ambientalmente sem prejudicar a vitalidade das atividades socioeconômicas desenvolvidas na área central.

Diachronic Analysis of Parking Usage: The Case Study of Brescia

The paper proposes a methodology for the investigation of the space-time relations between public services and individual mobility, by checking the space-time efficiency of the allocation of public and private parking areas. The methodology has been applied to the case study of Brescia, in northern Italy. The spatial distribution of car parking has been assessed as well as the usage variations during the day. First of all, the location and the density of parking areas within the city has been taken into account, and represented to show the spatial coverage of car parking supply. Then, the temporal issue has been considered, since the degree of use of each parking area varies within the time of the day. Therefore, the degree of use of each parking area has been mapped at three significant instant of the day (10.00 a.m.; 01.00 p.m. and 04.00 p.m.). This kind of analysis is particularly helpful to highlight the availability of parking areas during the day. The results of the analysis, even if referred to a case study, can be extended to similar situations as the methodology of the analysis has a broaden sound meaning. The aim of the paper is to illustrate a method to develop mobility policies and plans.

Deploying charging infrastructure for electric vehicles; viability analyses for municipal and private car parking facility operators

A lot of research has been done on the adoption of electric vehicles and on the deployment of the infrastructure for charging the batteries of these vehicles. Currently the total number of installed charging points keeps growing due to both public and private investments. Often charging services are offered as free service extensions. Maintaining this free business model will be difficult on the long term because of the investments needed. Therefore, the long term business viability and durability is not always clear from an investor point of view. This work presents a techno-economic model that describes the expected cost and revenue evolution resulting from different deployment strategies for a municipal or private parking facility operator. For charging service providers, charging pole exploiters and infrastructure owners for electric vehicle charging, the model allows to project the expected profitability. The main findings from this research indicate that business cases for public charging infrastructure can be viable, durable and could be competitive with the costs for charging the electric vehicle at home. Also, in a multi-actor market model all actors involved could benefit from deploying electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Although the business cases will be positive, significant investments are needed.