Changes in Costs Incurred by Car Users of the Local Transport System Due to the Implementation of Sunday Retail Restrictions

Abstract

The correlation between retail trade and the transport system is clear. Shops are customer oriented, and to visit them, the shopper needs to travel by a mode of transport and find a suitable time to do so. Due to the concentration of retail outlets in large-format shopping centres, these have become among the greatest attractors and traffic generators (including car traffic). While their attraction potential and traffic generation are well established in the literature, research on disruptions to the retail market and their impact on the transport system remains sparse. The authors—wishing to extend the scope of research on this subject matter—set themselves the objective of examining the extent to which Sunday retail restrictions affect the efficiency of the local road transport system. They applied time-measured costs (queuing and delayed travel times) as a measure of efficiency. Empirical measurements of traffic volumes were employed in the study, and the measure of efficiency was calculated through microsimulation traffic modelling based on a psychophysical car-following model. However, the returned results prove to be inconclusive. A decrease in the temporal cost incurred by road users is observed in areas around shopping centres located in the city centre and the outskirts. A different pattern, however, is observed close to shopping centres located on an axis connecting the city centre to residential areas. The main conclusion from this study is that the changes in traffic density seen due to Sunday retail restrictions should induce further analyses of the changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of traffic. As a result, a more efficient traffic management that is adjusted to a given day of the week and specific situation on that day could be implemented.