Parking policy: The politics and uneven use of residential parking space in Melbourne

Pressures on on-street residential parking in intensifying Australian cities are popularly ascribed to new higher density housing with insufficient off-street parking, underscoring calls to strengthen parking requirements in new developments. Despite the potential impacts of conventional minimum parking policies (on housing, land use, and transport patterns), there is no or little evidence of who uses residential on-street parking. Nor is there clear evidence of to what extent off-street parking, or requirements for it, actually offset on-street parking use. This study examines residential parking use in one Australian city, Melbourne, via two complementary sources: an existing travel survey of 8,994 households, and a custom online survey with 307 local responses. Although they have limitations, the two surveys provide new insight into where and by whom the use of on-street parking space around the home is more common.The study finds the majority (77–83%) of on-street residential parking use is by residents of detached housing. Most users of on-street parking have sufficient off-street parking, and half use garage space for storage or housing purposes. Residents of new flats and apartments account for disproportionately little on-street parking use, are excluded from on-street permits, and have closely controlled off-street parking spaces of which a third are unused. The paper argues uneven use of residential parking reflects household choices, and differing rights to space embedded by zoning traditions that privilege lower density housing. Critical analysis is given both of the capability of conventional ‘predict and provide’ parking policies to manage residential parking, and to cope with urban change.     

Parking behaviour: The curious lack of cruising for parking in San Francisco

Cruising for parking has long been perceived as a major source of congestion and emissions in urban areas, but recent empirical work suggests that parking may not be as onerous as folklore suggests, and that the amount of vehicle travel attributable to cruising is minimal. In this paper, we reconcile these perspectives through a dynamic programming model of parking search, and empirical insights from a large-scale GPS dataset in San Francisco and the California Household Travel Survey. We first draw a conceptual distinction between parking search, the time between the driver’s decision to park and when a parking space is taken; and cruising, defined as excess vehicle travel due to parking search. In places with little or no through traffic, up to half of traffic can be searching for parking, but cruising can be zero. We then operationalize this distinction through a dynamic programming model. The model predicts that when parking is perceived to be scarce, drivers are more willing to take a convenient available space, even if it is some distance from their destination. Counter-intuitively, scarce parking can even suppress vehicle travel as perceived parking scarcity leads drivers to stop short of their destinations and accept a longer walk. Empirical data from California indicate that neighborhood density (a proxy for parking availability) has little impact on cruising for parking, but increases walk distances from parking locations to final destinations. We conclude that cruising for parking is self-regulating, and that in certain circumstances parking scarcity can even reduce vehicle travel.     

Impacts of land use and amenities on public transport use,urban planning and design

Various land-use configurations are known to have wide-ranging effects on the dynamics of and within other city components including the transportation system. In this work, we particularly focus on the complex relationship between land-use and transport offering an innovative approach to the problem by using land-use features at two differing levels of granularity (the more general land-use sector types and the more granular amenity structures) to evaluate their impact on public transit ridership in both time and space. To quantify the interdependencies, we explored three machine learning models and demonstrate that the decision tree model performs best in terms of overall performance—good predictive accuracy, generality, computational efficiency, and “interpretability”. Results also reveal that amenity-related features are better predictors than the more general ones, which suggests that high-resolution geo-information can provide more insights into the dependence of transit ridership on land-use. We then demonstrate how the developed framework can be applied to urban planning for transit-oriented development by exploring practicable scenarios based on Singapore's urban plan toward 2030, which includes the development of “regional centers” (RCs) across the city-state. Results show an initial increase in transit ridership as the amount of amenities is increased. This trend, on the other hand, eventually reverses (particularly during peak hours) with continued strategic increase in amenities; a tipping point at 55% increase is identified where ridership begins to decline and at 110%, the predicted ridership begins to fall below current levels. Our in-silico experiments support one of the medium-term land-use transport goals of stakeholders—to alleviate future strains in the transportation system of Singapore through the development of RCs. The model put forward can serve as a good foundation in building decision-support tools that can assist planners in better strategizing and planning land-use configurations, in particular the amenity resource distribution, to influence and shape public transportation demand.     

林农公益林补偿收益权质押贷款可得性研究

基于双变量Probit模型从需求和供给两个角度对浙江省丽水市公益林补偿收益权质押贷款试点地区255个林农的贷款可得性、内在联系及影响因素进行研究。结果表明:60.39%的林农对公益林补偿收益权质押贷款有需求,11.76%的林农成功获得贷款;丽水试验区公益林补偿收益权质押贷款存在供给范围较窄、公益林小户和大额资金需求得不到有效满足等问题;户主受教育程度、家庭人口负担、公益林面积、贷款期限是影响林农收益权质押贷款需求决策的因素;在需求约束下,年龄小、受教育程度高、公益林面积大、优质存量客户的贷款可得性更高,并且公益林补偿收益权质押贷款的可得性更依赖于林农家庭经济状况。     

Parking futures: Shared automated vehicles and parking demand reduction trajectories in Atlanta

The coming of automated vehicles (AVs) and Mobility-on-Demand (MoD services) is expected to reduce urban parking demand and correspondingly alter the urban parking landscape in a significant way. Multiple modeling efforts have already demonstrated that Shared AVs (SAVs) have promising potential to decrease urban parking demand. However, previous studies have only examined SAV parking demand at one point in time, with various market penetrations. It remains unclear what the demand reduction trajectory will be like during the transition period when there is a mix of SAVs, Privately-Owned AVs (PAVs), Shared Conventional Vehicles (SCVs), and Conventional Private Vehicles (CPVs). This study fills this gap by developing an agent-based simulation model to examine the spatially and temporally explicit parking reduction trends with mixed travel modes from 2020–2040. The results indicate that in the most optimal AV and MoD adoption scenario, the parking demand will decrease by over 20% after 2030, especially in core urban areas. Meanwhile, the parking demand in residential zones may double, which could lead to transportation equity concerns. Additionally, parking relocation may also induce environmental issues by generating a considerable amount of empty Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). To reap the benefits brought by AVs and MoD systems and to mitigate the accompanying social and environmental issues, our results suggest that proactive policymakers in the next decade will need to modify land use regulations for both new developments and existing parking infrastructure in commercial and residential zones, as well as update travel demand management policies.     

Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure: Impact on the Consumption of Indian Households

This paper examines whether out-of-pocket health expenditure affects the composition of household consumption. Based on Indian data, conditional Engel curves for 10 broad categories of goods and services, namely food, intoxicants, fuel, clothing and footwear, education, entertainment, travel, rent, durables and other goods have been estimated. Conditional Engel curves show whether the share of a particular good is increased or decreased in household consumption due to health expenditure. The findings suggest that poor households decrease the share of clothing and education and increase the share of food, fuel and travel. It has also been found that households from less developed states and from states with lower public health expenditure were more affected.     

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.     

福州国家森林公园游客偏好研究

以福州国家森林公园为研究对象,运用ROST 6.0信息挖掘软件对其进行情感分布、社会网络和语义网络以及分类词频分析。结果表明:游客在情感分布上总体呈现积极情绪;游客的主要动机依次是烧烤、爬山、休闲、散步、观赏、踏青等;游客最喜欢的景点和事物依次是千年榕树、樱花林、桃花林、鸟语林、龙潭等;而游客去福州国家森林公园的时间主要在周末和节假日,在季节方面游客更喜欢春季和夏季;同时部分游客反映福州国家森林公园还存在位置偏远、交通不便、电瓶车收费高、人造景观过多、停车场收费不一、一定时期人太多、冬天景观单调及园内出现不文明现象问题。因此,建议开展专线公交;建立实时双向反馈平台及充分发挥宣传平台作用;加强自然景观保护;加强福州国家森林公园冬季景观营造。     

Selling at the Farmgate or Traveling to Market

Using detailed survey data from Uganda, this article examines whether coffee producers sell to itinerant traders or directly to markets, where they can get a higher price but must incur a transport cost. We find that selling to the market is more likely when the quantity sold is large and the market is close by. Wealthy farmers are less likely to sell to the market, possibly because the shadow value of their time is higher. But if they have a large quantity of coffee for sale, they are more likely to sell it to the market. They are also more likely to travel to a distant market. These findings are consistent with their better ability to pay for public transportation. We find no evidence that the decision to sell at the farmgate is driven by a self-control motive.     

Parking futures: An international review of trends and speculation

The explosion of low-cost, on-demand taxi services and the anticipation of an autonomous vehicle future has made transportation the center of debate and discussion for the first time since the massive expansion of the US highway system in the 1950s. Yet the realm of parking boasts innovations and developments far beyond the high-profile issues of TNCs and AVs. Rather, innovation in parking is happening in many cases quietly on a wide variety of fronts, including technology, public policy, and design. This paper serves an overview of emerging trends in parking, primarily within the US context. We identify and outline five developments and the pertinent technologies helping to catalyze change: unbundling parking costs, reducing parking minimums, pricing and allocating curb space dynamically, designing hybrid parking structures, and preparing for the autonomous era and “mobility as a service.” This paper presents these trends with illustrative examples highlighting current practices, governance challenges, and possible future scenarios.     

The environmental and economic costs of sprawling parking lots in the United States

Urban sprawl is considered by most environmental scientists and urban planners to be a serious environmental problem. However, public perception about parking availability often forces planning offices to recommend parking lot sizes that exceed daily demands. The recent trend of increasing the size of stores, churches and even schools comes with increasing the size of parking lots that service these buildings. The objective of this paper is to analyze space allocation of parking lots in a typical midwestern county and to estimate the supply of parking spaces to potential demand. We also estimate the loss of ecosystem services represented by the area of parking lots in this county. We found that parking lots cover 5.65 km² (1 397 acres) of Tippecanoe County, Indiana which implies that 0.44% of the county area is devoted to parking lots. Our results show that there are approximately 2.2 parking spaces per registered vehicle, that parking lots make up more than 6.57% of the total urban footprint in this county, that the area of parking lots exceeded the area of parks in the city limits by a factor of three and that parking lot runoff and pollutants are significant compared to runoff and pollutants from these areas prior to their conversion to parking lots. As other authors have done before us we lament the poor use of land in urban regions of the United States, and encourage planners to think creatively about the use of land for parking.     

新一轮集体林改对不同类型农户林业生产投入的影响研究

基于连续跟踪调研获得的9省区18县市1497个样本农户8年的长期平衡面板数据,采用扩展生产函数,分析了集体林产权制度改革主体改革及其配套改革对不同类型农户林业生产投入的影响。结果表明:⑴实施集体林产权制度改革主体改革增加农业兼业户、非农兼业户和非农户单位面积林业劳动力和生产费用投入,但降低了纯农户的林业投入;⑵森林保险对纯农户单位面积林业劳动力和生产费用投入的影响比农业兼业户、非农兼业户和非农户积极;⑶林权抵押贷款对农业兼业户、非农兼业户和非农户林业投入的影响优于纯农户。因此,政策在深入推进的过程中,需因地制宜、因户制宜,最大限度地考虑不同类型农户的利益。     

森林抚育补贴政策对国有林区职工家庭收入流动性的影响

利用2015及2016年东北、内蒙古国有林区411户职工家庭的跟踪调查数据,运用绝对收入流动性指标、马尔科夫链转移概率矩阵和普通最小二乘法(OLS)实证分析了森林抚育补贴政策对职工家庭收入流动性的影响。研究结果表明:国有林区职工家庭对森林抚育的参与程度处于较低水平;森林抚育补贴政策对职工家庭收入流动性的影响并不显著,但对高收入组产生了一定的积极影响;作为政策目标受益群体的低收入职工家庭,其收入水平并未因森林抚育补贴政策的实行而向上流动。     

Migrant remittances,agriculture investment and cropping patterns

We investigate how the receipt and amount of domestic or international transfers influences household decisions regarding farm investment and the selection of capital and labour-intensive crops. We argue that, even though recipient households may use additional income to increase agricultural investment, investment can fall in the short run if labour constraints arising from the migrant member's absence are binding and capital accumulation is suboptimal. Employing a set of endogenous treatment estimates, we test this hypothesis on data from 5636 rural households in Pakistan. Our findings show a substantial difference between recipient and non-recipient households in terms of their economic behaviour. Recipient households make 100% less agricultural investment and generate 82% less production compared to non-recipient households. The estimates are found to be robust when tested with alternate empirical techniques (Heckman Selection and matching). The impact is stronger in the case of households that receive domestic transfers, with 100% less farm investment and 77% less production than non-recipient households. Remittances result in a decrease in production of both capital- and labour-intensive crops, reflecting a decline in overall farm activity. Similar farm investment and cropping patterns are observed relative to the amount of remittances received. The results are robust to different model specifications and estimation procedures.     

Parking Behavior: Park ‘n’ Ride (PnR) to encourage multimodalism in Brisbane

‘Park ‘n’ Ride’ facilities (PnR) initially emerged to accommodate motorists that would otherwise exhaust the local supply of parking around train stations and other rapid high occupancy vehicle nodes but increasing became a planning strategy to provide commuters from auto-dependent suburbs with access to rapid high occupancy vehicle to reduce their environmental impacts and inner-city road and parking capacity requirements. Theoretically, PnR should influence modal choice by making the transfer between car and rapid transit more convenient yet this base assumption rarely matches the empirical reality. Our synthesis of the PnR literature suggests that motorists deciding whether to park-and-ride have considerations beyond minimising their travel duration and expenses, and we develop a new integrative model of PnR, multi-modalism, and modal choice to illustrate how reliability and competing transport planning strategies such as inter-city mobility, transit-oriented development, and active transport interact and inform modal choice. Upon laying these theoretical foundations, we empirically examine the extent to which developing or modifying PnR influences modal choice in our case study context, Brisbane, Australia. Our research findings suggest that it is new rather than modified PnR that influence modal choice and that new park and riders are typically drawn from nearby locations rather than peripheral and therefore auto-dependent areas. This influence is particularly evident in suburbs closer to the inner city, and is problematic given that these are not the intended users of PnR. Our synthesis and examination of multi-modalism and modal choice has important implications for researchers, planners, and policy makers attempting to influence modal choice and improve the efficiency of urban mobility.     

Impact of Ethiopia's productive safety net program on manure use by rural households: Evidence from Tigrai,Northern Ethiopia

Although development intervention programs can have far-reaching impacts beyond their stated objective, there have been few careful studies on associated but unintended outcomes of such programs. This study assesses the impact of membership in the public works component of Ethiopia's productive safety net program (PSNP) on whether households use manure and the amount of it they use. This is done using the double-hurdle method based on survey data of 2015 on 11 agro-climatically diverse districts of the Tigrai region in Northern Ethiopia. Results show that PSNP member households are not different from their nonmember counterparts in terms of manure use. This may indicate that PSNP is helping member households catch up with nonmember households in terms of manure use, even though they have smaller livestock ownership. This might indicate that PSNP member households are becoming more aware of the benefits of using manure, and hence are using available manure more efficiently. Therefore, this could be taken as one additional positive contribution of the PSNP in Ethiopia's endeavor to improve food security of poor rural farm households by increasing their productivity.     

Policies for sustainable development in the hillside areas of Honduras: a quantitative livelihoods approach

In this article, we use data for 376 households, 1,066 parcels, and 2,143 plots located in 95 villages in the hillside areas in Honduras to generate information needed by decision makers to assess the needs and opportunities for public investments, and design policies that stimulate natural resource conservation. We develop a quantitative livelihood approach, using factor and cluster analysis to group households based on the use of their main assets. This resulted in seven household categories that pursue similar livelihood strategies. We use a multinomial logit model to show that livelihood strategies are determined by comparative advantages as reflected by a combination of biophysical and socioeconomic variables. While 92% of the rural hillsides population in Honduras lives on US$1.00/capita/day or less, households that follow a livelihood strategy based on basic grain farming are the poorest because they often live in isolated areas with relatively poor agro‐ecological and socioeconomic conditions. Opportunities for off‐farm work tend to be limited in these areas and household strategies that combine on‐farm work with off‐farm work earn higher incomes. Per capita incomes can be increased by improving road infrastructure, widening access to land, policies that reduce household size and dependency ratios, and adoption of sustainable land management technologies that restore soil fertility. We used probit models to show that the latter can be promoted by agricultural extension programs and land redistribution. Investments in physical assets should be directed toward households that pursue livelihood strategies based on off‐farm employment or coffee production, while agricultural training programs are best focused on livestock producers.     

香港“轨道交通＋土地综合利用”模式的启示

香港＂轨道交通＋土地综合利用＂的模式是一种集地铁投资、建设、运营和沿线土地综合开发于一体的综合开发模式,是由港铁统筹开发的。从运作流程上分为项目谋划、项目明确、项目开发和项目运营四个阶段,在营造高效率的公共交通体系、促进土地高度集约、节约利用等方面都取得了明显效益。对我国城镇交通发展有五点启示和借鉴：（1）交通规划与土地规划同步进行、有机结合;（2）推进经营性土地有偿使用;（3）运用节地技术和模式,充分发挥土地的复合利用功能;（4）分层出让,实现土地利用的多元化价值;（5）拓展融资渠道,实现轨道交通多渠道投融资。     

乡村振兴林农参与碳汇项目意愿研究

基于2016年福建省林权改革监测调研数据,利用二元Logistic模型,分析影响福建省欠发达山区林农参与碳汇林生产经营意愿的因素;贫困户与非贫困户对碳汇林项目经营意愿是否有差异及产生差异的原因。结果表明:贫困户与非贫困户对于碳汇林项目的响应程度有一定的区别,对于全体受访对象和非贫困户,是否参加过碳汇林生产培训、家庭林地面积、家庭林业总收入对提高其参与林业碳汇项目的意愿有显著的促进作用,而木材采伐销售收入反向影响其参与林业碳汇项目的意愿;对于贫困户,是否参加过碳汇林生产培训显著影响其参与林业碳汇项目经营的意愿。因此,提高贫困户和非贫困户的碳汇林经营意愿应各有侧重,在政策的制定上应给予贫困户一定的倾斜,调动贫困户的经营积极性,拓宽收入渠道,最终实现精准扶贫。