How we conducted the survey
Drive to the outskirts of a city, leave your car in a car park and transfer to underground or suburban trains to ride into the city centre. This is how Park and Ride works - a practical option for car drivers. Park and Ride schemes are designed to prevent congestion in the city centres and come with the added benefit of saving costs and time for motorists. But like everything else in Europe, the schemes vary considerably in the different countries as regards their name, signposting and pricing. Together with its 17 European partner clubs plus the clubs in Hungary and the Czech Republic, ADAC had a closer look at Park and Ride facilities in the framework of the EuroTest programme.
At first, only the capital cities of the partner clubs' countries were selected for the survey to the exception of the UK and Switzerland. In these two countries, Sheffield and Geneva were the cities of choice. The city of London did not feature in the survey, since P+R schemes exist in the Greater London area only and not close to the London city centre. In Switzerland, Geneva was selected instead of Bern because it is the location of international organisations and destination of many commuters from France. In Germany, three cities were included in the survey in addition to the capital Berlin. All in all, the survey reflects the situation in the following cities: Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), Budapest (Hungary), Geneva (Switzerland), Helsinki (Finland), Copenhagen (Denmark), Lisbon (Portugal), Ljubljana (Slovenia), Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Madrid (Spain), Oslo (Norway), Paris (France), Prague (Czech Republic), Rome (Italy), Sheffield (Great Britain), Stockholm (Sweden), Vienna (Austria) and Zagreb (Croatia). The majority of those cities offer a total of about 80 000 Park and Ride parking spaces near the city centres at transit points to ride downtown.
The survey covered two areas: availability, size and characteristics of P+R systems and local transport connectivity. The focus was placed on the capacities of Ride facilities, the nation-wide designation, signposting and pricing for integrated public transport. Also, P+R extension plans and facility requirements played a role as well.
ADAC commissioned the IMK Institute for Applied Marketing and Communication Research with conducting and evaluating the survey. Data was collected in writing from the relevant city officials and representatives of local public transport. A database was generated containing all details from the questionnaires. The data set was subsequently adjusted for the cities where the respondents stated that no P+R system was available or gave conflicting information. This was the case for Brussels, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid and Zagreb.
The survey was complemented by additional investigation in close cooperation with the partner clubs as well as Internet research. The quality of local Park and Ride sites was not part of the study.
EuroTests - EuroTest 2009 - Park & Ride
