Modeling Response to Parking Policy

Abstract

Parking policy is one of the most powerful means urban planners and policy makers can use to manage travel demand and traffic in city centers. Since urban access is considered crucial to the economic success of a downtown area, certain constituencies, such as business and retail, have historically been opposed to any parking-restriction policies. To address these concerns and create appropriate parking policies, it is important to understand how visitors to the city center are likely to respond to new policies. A model to estimate the likely response to two parking-policy alternatives in the Carmel Center area of Haifa, Israel, is presented: an increase in parking cost and a decrease in parking availability that will increase driver search time for parking. The model is based on the responses of center visitors to a stated preference survey. Three different models were estimated: a binary model, a multinomial logit, and a nested model. The results show that workers are more likely to change their mode or time of day of travel than to change destination or cancel their activity. Nonworkers are likely to make all types of changes, and for all policies, they are more sensitive than workers. These results suggest that parking measures may be effective in reducing congestion in the business district. However, they may also have a negative effect on the vitality of the business district as shoppers and other visitors are likely to go to other places in response to the change.