The role of market research and consultation in developing parking policy

There is a demonstrable link between parking availability, price and mode choice, and parking policy has been shown to be a powerful demand management tool. Parking however is clearly an area of policy conflict since using it to manage demand may reduce revenue generation, or (be perceived to) damage the local economy. In terms of on-street and off-street parking there are a wide range of users who often have conflicting opinions, which have to be taken into account in its management, invariably leading to parking policies and measures that do not maximise the demand management potential of parking.This paper presents a range of public and business opinion data, from the case study of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, collected as part of the consultation for its parking strategy in 2005–2006. The strategy covers a wider geographical area than simply the city centre, and whilst this paper makes reference to this wider area it primarily deals with the city centre since that is where the majority of the parking strategy issues are to be found. After setting the policy and political context, the paper goes on to present these data. It then shows how the city's parking policies were changed in response to the consultation. These policy changes are compared with parking policies that would solely manage travel demand, to demonstrate how the political process leads to compromise in the formulation of parking policies and measures.     

Congestion tolls and parking fees: A comparison of the potential effect on travel behavior

This paper presents a comparison of attitudes towards congestion and parking tolls and explores their effect on travel behavior. The findings indicate that drivers are sensitive mainly to congestion tolls and are willing to change their travel habits to avoid these tolls. The major effect of a congestion toll is the shifting of the time of the journey. High levels of demand elasticity (−1.8 for congestion tolls and −1.2 for parking fees) were found. The readiness to pay parking fees is greater; thus, the effectiveness of congestion tolls in reducing demand is higher during the times the tolls apply.     

Spatial competition between parking garages and downtown parking policy

This paper looks at optimal parking policy in dense urban districts (“downtown”), where spatial competition between parking garages is a key feature, from the perspective of economic theory. The paper has four parts. The first looks at the “parking garage operator's problem”. The second derives equilibrium in the parking garage market when there is no on-street parking, compares the equilibrium to the social optimum, and examines optimal parking policy in this context. Since parking garage operators have market power, the spatial competition equilibrium is generally inefficient, and parking policy can be used to mitigate the distortion. The third adds on-street parking and considers how its underpricing affects second-best parking policy. The fourth adds mass transit, and considers how economies of scale in mass transit interact with minimum and maximum off-street parking standards.Preliminary draft: Please do not cite or quote without the permission of the author.     

Elasticities of mode choice probabilities and market elasticities of demand: Evidence from a simultaneous mode choice/shipment-size freight transport model

This paper presents empirical estimates of market elasticities of demand and elasticities of mode choice probabilities in the intercity freight transport market. Results are derived from a mixed discrete/continuous choice model of mode and shipment size. The mode choice component of the full model was specified as a binary probit function. The two modes considered were rail and regulated common carriers (full truck load). Data was drawn from the US Commodity Transportation Survey consisting of individual shipments of manufactured goods identified at the most disaggregate level. Results obtained in this study are compared with those obtained in previous studies, and areas of similarities and dissimilarities in the magnitude as well as interpretation of the results are highlighted. The own-price and cross-price elasticities of mode choice probabilities were found to vary from 1.44 to 1.88, and from 1.54 to 1.75, respectively. The market price elasticities of demand were found to vary significantly across commodity groups and geographic territories. Among the 40 market segments considered, the truck price elasticity of demand ranged between −0.749 and −2.525; the rail price elasticity of demand was slightly larger, ranging between −0.956 and −2.489; and the rail–truck cross-price elasticity of demand ranged between 0.904 and 2.532.     

Parking enforcement and travel demand management

This article deals with on-street, non-free parking policy. The aim is to show how parking meter violation challenges the travel demand management policy. The literature widely admits that only the increase in the enforcement effort both deters drivers from offending and contribute to moderating car use. Nevertheless, the link between parking non-compliance, enforcement effort and travel demand has never been examined. We show that when parking meter violation behaviour, fine level choice, modal split and travel demand are connected, the fine increase paradoxically supports car use and encourages parking violation in the case of large parking congestion in particular.     

Support for innovative on-street parking policies: empirical evidence from an urban neighborhood

Municipalities and planners often hesitate to implement restrictive parking policies because residents regularly oppose any changes to on-street parking space. Residential parking is one key factor of parking management because its location and availability influence a household's car ownership and use. Moreover, as more residents regularly use other means of transportation that need space and infrastructure in the urban realm, and as parking takes up a vast amount of land, municipalities are considering the reuse of on-street parking space for other purposes. As public acceptability is a precondition for the successful implementation of a proposed policy, our empirical analysis investigates to what extent residents support restrictive and demand-oriented on-street parking policies in the dense, highly urbanized neighborhood of Frankfurt-Bornheim, Germany (N = 1027). Surprisingly, despite some variations, the majority of the residents in our survey are in favor of the policy options suggested. Support for the demand-oriented policies (extension of bicycle infrastructure, improved sharing supply and mobility hubs, neighborhood garages, and improved public transit supply) is higher than the acceptance of the restrictive policies, and of policies that are a combination of restrictive and demand-oriented policies. However, surprisingly, a majority is still in favor of many of these (extension of parking fees and parking restrictions, and reuse of parking space for better livability). Furthermore, we classify residents who live in a household with private cars into the stage model of self-regulated behavior change to analyze their intention towards a reduction in private car use. Results from linear regression analyses indicate that residents who have intentions to change their behavior towards car use reduction assess the policy options more similarly to car-free households and regular bike users, and not like the other car-owning households. The findings suggest that while the residents support financial-related policies the least, they are more receptive towards parking policies than policy makers and planners assume if the reuse of parking lots creates space for other users or if it increases the quality of life, for instance, by adding bike lanes, wider sidewalks or greenery. Hence, a combination of restrictive and demand-oriented on-street parking policies results in high acceptance among residents, and the communication from municipalities regarding the implementation of the different policies needs to vary depending on the kind of household.     

Influence of varied parking tariffs on parking occupancy levels by trip purpose

The potential impact of parking-pricing on trip generation and modal choice is gaining greater acknowledgement within transport demand management research. However, although the aggregate effect of a transport demand management pricing measure is often noted or estimated, the potential varied impact of pricing measures on specific subsets of the market are often overlooked in the policy process. The variance of price impacts on different trip purposes, initially, and as tariffs increase progressively, is an important consideration for policy makers. Using the results from a survey on 1007 on-street parkers in Dublin, Ireland, this paper shows a progressively widening gap in price sensitivity between trips made for business purposes relative to non-business purposes, as the suggested parking pricing scenarios are increased. The results highlight the complication that the varied price sensitivity of particular market subsets can bring to development of a pricing policy and warns of threshold points where the gap between the price responsiveness of specific market subsets become considerably more pronounced.     

What's that garage for? Private parking and on-street parking in a high-density urban residential neighbourhood

High-density inner-city residential neighbourhoods are often characterised by serious parking pressure and illegal parking. We study parking choices in a historical neighbourhood in Dortmund, Germany, using a household survey. Specifically, we look at the availability of and distance to private parking, the use of available private and on-street parking, and search duration. Additionally, we look at simple measures of satisfaction with parking and with the neighbourhood in general. Our results show that available private parking is not necessarily used where there is little control of illegal on-street parking. Furthermore, search durations and distance to cars parked on-street suggest that parking pressure is lower than commonly perceived in the neighbourhood. Private parking is under-utilised to the extent that we estimate that illegal parking can be reduced by 28 to 49% if private parking were consistently used by those who have it available. Even more substantial reductions in illegal parking can be achieved by deviating from standard sizes for public parking spaces. From our results we draw conclusions for urban parking policy. These include introducing parking fees, coupled with paid parking permits for residents and, perhaps, employees; defining short-stay parking zones; providing parking spaces of different sizes; and increasing the level of enforcement.     

Cruising for parking

Suppose curb parking is free but all the spaces are occupied, and off-street parking is expensive but immediately available. In this case, you can cruise to find a curb space being vacated by a departing motorist, or pay for off-street parking right away. This paper presents a model of how drivers choose whether to cruise or to pay, and it predicts several results: you are more likely to cruise if curb parking is cheap, off-street parking is expensive, fuel is cheap, you want to park for a long time, you are alone in the car, and you place a low value on saving time. The model also predicts that charging the market price for curb parking—at least equal to the price of adjacent off-street parking—will eliminate cruising. Because the government sets curb parking prices, planners and elected officials strongly influence drivers’ decisions to cruise. The failure to charge market rates for curb parking congests traffic, pollutes the air, wastes fuel, and causes accidents. Between 1927 and 2001, studies of cruising in congested downtowns have found that it took between 3.5 and 14 min to find a curb space, and that between 8 and 74 percent of the traffic was cruising for parking.     

A dynamic panel analysis of urban metro demand

A dynamic panel model is used to estimate the effect that fares, income and quality of service have on demand for a sample of 22 urban metros. The estimated price elasticity is −0.05 in the short run and −0.33 in the long run. The estimated long run income elasticity is small but positive (0.18), indicating that metros are perceived as normal goods. The quality of service elasticities are positive and substantially higher than the absolute value of fare elasticities. The implication is that quality of service improvements, rather than fare reductions, may be more effective in increasing metro patronage.     

Identifying sources of systematic variation in direct price elasticities from revealed preference studies of inter-city freight demand

Freight demand elasticity studies vary significantly in terms of the demand measure, data type, estimation method, commodity type, etc. This wide variation makes it difficult to compare empirical estimates when the differences may arise in part from the methods and data used. In this paper we conduct a comparative analysis to identify systematic sources of influence on direct price elasticity estimates in the context of freight transport, distinguishing between road, rail, and sea transport, using published direct price elasticities from 12 elasticity-derivative studies from five countries. The study focuses on revealed preference elasticities defined by the freight rate for tonnes and tonne kilometres of inter-city freight movements. Systematic sources that explain differences in direct price elasticities include the demand elasticity measure, mode, commodity class, model estimation form, country, and temporal nature of data (e.g., cross-section). Analysts can utilise the model outputs to adjust the empirical evidence from specific studies to control for differences that impact on the behavioural implications of comparative evidence.     

A model to forecast airport-level General Aviation demand

General Aviation (GA) demand forecast plays an important role in aviation management, planning and policy making. The objective of this paper is to develop an airport-level GA demand forecast model. The GA demand at an airport is modeled as a function of social-economic and demographic factors, the availability of supply factors, the competition from the commercial aviation, the number of based aircraft, and the presence of a flight school. Our models suggest that the relative fuel price – fuel price compared with personal income – is a significant determinant of airport level GA demand. The elasticity of itinerant and local GA demand with respect to the relative fuel price is −0.43 and −0.52, respectively. Our results are compared with those reported in other studies. Furthermore, we made projections of GA demand for the airports in the Terminal Area Forecast (TAF) using three fuel price scenarios from the Energy Information Administration. Our projections under the “business-as-usual” fuel price scenario are close to those in the TAF. Our models could prove useful, for example, for the Federal Aviation Administration and airport planners to prepare airport-level GA demand forecast.     

Profiling road transport activity: Emissions from 2000 to 2005 in Ireland using national car test data

This work describes a methodology for determining the average vehicle kilometres travelled by the private national car fleet in Ireland and estimating the disaggregated CO₂ and NO_x emissions from private vehicles in the Irish road transport sector for the period 2000–2005 using national car test records. The developed methodology facilitates the calculation of greatly improved estimates for vehicle kilometres under a range of constraint variables and thereby enables the disaggregated analysis of specific vehicle fleet groups and their associated activity patterns to support evidence-based policy development. The results indicate that while older vehicles are contributing significantly to car NO_x emissions; newer cars produce a higher share of CO₂ emissions than older cars in the vehicle fleet.     

Varying Elasticities and Forecasting Performance

This study assumes that tourists' demand reactions to income and price changes are asymmetric at different phases of the business cycle. In order to test this hypothesis, we analyzed the demand for international tourism in five source markets using a modified growth rate (MGR) model. The empirical evidence demonstrates that income elasticity is indeed asymmetric across the business cycle in four source markets. In addition, asymmetric price effects were found for one source market. To compare forecasting performance, we also estimated a time‐varying parameter (TVP) model. The results show that the MGR model generally outperforms the TVP model. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A productivity comparison of the world's major airlines

This paper measures and compares productivity and unit cost of the world's 23 major airlines using yearly panel data (1986–1993). An extensive effort was expended to put together a reliable database. These data are then used to accomplish the following: first, unit cost per unit of aggregate output is measured and compared. The effect of input price changes on the unit costs are also examined. Second, the ‘gross’ Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is measured and compared. In order to compare true productive efficiency across airlines and over time, a ‘residual’ TFP index is computed after removing effects of the variables beyond managerial control such as average stage length and composition of outputs. Log-linear TFP level, and TFP growth rate regressions are used to accomplish this task. Our results show that:

1. (a) during the sample period (1986–1993), the major European carriers and the carriers in newly industrialized countries in Asia have achieved significantly higher productivity growth than their North American counterparts;

2. (b) as a result, the productivity gap between North American and other carriers have diminished significantly;

3. (c) however, on average, the North American carriers still enjoy higher productive efficiency than the carriers in Asian NICs and European carriers, but the gap is closing very rapidly; and

4. (d) it is observed that, over time, the productive efficiency of carriers competing in the same markets tends to converge.

Finally, Asian NIC carriers clearly enjoy unit cost advantages over other major carriers. Our results show that European aviation liberalization which began in 1987 appears to have produced substantial productivity gains.     

Can high quality public transport support reduced car parking requirements for new residential apartments?

This paper explores the extent to which high quality public transport can support reduced car parking requirements for new residential apartment buildings. Using a case study of Melbourne, the demand for car parking at residential apartment buildings in proximity to high frequency public transport is assessed, while controlling for a range of socio-demographic, urban design and demand management variables. Key findings indicate that while lower demand for car parking is associated with proximity to high quality public transport, this association is not significant when controlling for other factors that influence car ownership. Public transport service supply within 800 m of residential apartment buildings was instead found to be significant, rather than simple distance to transit. Modelling results suggest an inelastic relationship whereby a 10% increase in public transport service supply is associated with a 0.9–1.2% reduction in car parking demand as measured by levels of car ownership. Notwithstanding broader criticisms of residential off-street parking minimums, the findings have important implications for the development of residential car parking policies, suggesting that city-wide car parking requirements should appropriately reflect the spatial distribution and quality of public transport services.     

Examining spatial variations in minimum residential parking requirements in Melbourne

Minimum off-street residential parking requirements are used in many cities as a way to accommodate parking demand associated with new residential development. In some cases, variations to these requirements are used in the form of reduced (or eliminated) minimums and/or maximum parking requirements to more actively manage parking demand. This paper assesses how such variations affecting new residential apartment development in Melbourne, known locally as parking overlays, compare against residential parking demand. Using household car ownership data as a proxy for off-street residential parking demand, a case-control analysis was undertaken to compare car ownership within and immediately outside areas affected by the parking overlays, while controlling for a range of built environment, public transport, demand management and socio-demographic variables. Key findings indicate that car ownership is generally lower in areas affected by parking overlays, yet this was either roughly the same or well below the actual parking requirement. Through regression modelling, the results highlighted the importance of public transport service quality, car parking requirements and demographics in influencing car ownership within and immediately outside the parking overlay areas. These results were used to develop a parking overlay index to identify other areas that could benefit from more flexible residential parking requirements. Despite parking overlays considered as a form of parking management, the results imply that, in Melbourne, they represent little more than a conventional supply-side approach to parking policy. The results indicate that residential off-street parking requirements could be reduced further in Melbourne, both within and outside of areas affected by parking overlays, to more actively manage parking demand.     

Tourism demand: a panel data approach

This paper estimates the coefficients of the determinants of international tourism demand for the period 1995–2014 in the USA using the gravity framework. The analysis is based on a panel dataset of tourist arrivals among 14 countries using autoregressive distributed lag methods. The results show real gross domestic product, consumer price index, real exchange rate and certain specific events have a significant impact on international tourism demand. The income elasticity suggests that tourism is non-luxury goods, and prices and real exchange rate have negative relation to tourist arrivals. We also find that tourism transport infrastructure is a significant determinant of tourist arrivals into USA. This implies that infrastructure to reinforce taste formation is important to attract more international tourists to USA. In addition, results also suggest implications for public and private tourism authorities.     

Slot auction in an airport network with demand uncertainty

This paper investigates the effectiveness of airport slot auction by developing a two-stage model, which distributes slots among competing airlines using an ascending-bid multi-unit auction. Airlines assign different values to slots at peak and off-peak periods, and each carrier has its private (subjective) forecast of future demand. Conditional on the slots available to them, airlines compete in frequency, fare, and aircraft size over a congested airport network. The market outcome under such a scheme is benchmarked to those under an ex ante allocation and an ex post allocation by a social planner. Comparison results suggest that the auction-based scheme is inferior to the other two schemes when there is little fluctuation in demand, whereas the auction-based system is more effective when there is substantial demand uncertainty. Auctioning some grandfathered slots can improve social welfare but the marginal effect may diminish quickly.     

Effects of parking and cordon charge policies on tourist's modal shift in central business district of Mashhad city,Iran

The second largest holy city of the world, Mashhad, attracts high volumes of tourists and pilgrims every year. Most visitors travel by private car and are a source of considerable funds for the local economy. Among road users, tourists as one of the major traveller categories in Mashhad city behave differently due to the particular trip purpose. The aim of this research is to model tourist's shifting modes of travel behaviour when policy measures, such as the parking and cordon fares, are implemented. The tourists’ preferences were examined using binary logit analysis when different options of travel cost and time scenarios were provided. Results indicate that travel time, parking cost, cordon cost, education level and vehicle price influence tourist's modal choice. In addition, the finding shows that congestion pricing will be more effective than a parking pricing strategy in encouraging switching of modes.