Park-and-Ride jungle in Europe: Seek and you shall find
Different signs, different designs, some free, some cheap, some expensive - this is Park and Ride in Europe. As multi-coloured as life in the individual countries is the array of Park and Ride sites in European cities. These are the findings of a study conducted by ADAC and 19 automobile clubs in 22 major European cities. For the survey, experts of the city administrations and representatives of local public transport were interviewed.
Nil return from Copenhagen, Brussels, Madrid, Lisbon and Zagreb: either they have no P+R system or answers were inconsistent. Brussels city and region, for instance, lack the political commitment to install this type of parking system, whereas in Madrid and Lisbon there is no common understanding as to the design of Park and Ride facilities.
The other cities handle P+R schemes quite variably, for instance where the distance between parking lots and public transit points is concerned. More than half of the surveyed cities have defined maximum requirements for the distance between the site and the public transport stop. This is about 300 metres on average in Europe. In Cologne the distance is shortest with between 100 and 200 metres, while in Berlin P+R customers are expected to walk up to 800 metres. Between 35 and 45 percent of the cities provide definitions for ground structure or lighting requirements respectively for P+R sites as part of their safety policy.
Nearly all cities intend to broaden their offer
Considerable variation was found in the capacity of P+R sites. While Ljubljana currently only operates one site offering 217 parking spaces, motorists in Rome can select one of about 13 000 parking spaces at 31 sites. Paris plus region ranks first in Europe with Île-de-France offering a total of 547 sites with over 100 000 parking spaces. Bringing the available number of parking spaces in relation to the number of inhabitants in a city, Luxembourg leads the field with nearly 50 parking spaces per 1 000 inhabitants, followed by Geneva with 26 parking spaces. All other cities range at a much lower level providing between one and six parking spaces per 1 000 inhabitants. However, no less than 80 percent of the surveyed cities mean to extend their parking space capacity, with more than 70 percent planning to construct new sites.
Variation does, however, not only affect capacity. There also are striking differences with regard to the pricing policy. While P+R sites in Luxembourg and in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne are generally free of charge, P+R parking in Geneva, Prague, Stockholm and Vienna is subject to payment. In addition to this all-or-none policy, there are a number of cities adopting a mixed approach: Helsinki, Budapest and Oslo offer more than 75 percent of their parking free of charge, while the relation in Munich and Rome is exactly the reverse with motorists being required to pay at over 80 percent of the P+R sites.
Expensive Five Star car park in Geneva Geneva has the highest P+R charges in Europe. In the most expensive facility, the Parc Relais Étoile, 24 hours parking come at a cost equivalent to about €37, plus €2 per person for the ride into the city centre. Ljubljana is the exception where you pay €1 a day for parking including return bus ticket for the trip into the city centre.
The study revealed a relation between the pricing policy and type of operator. While privately operated sites are generally charged, public facilities provide either free or low-cost parking. Often, though not always, parking gets more expensive the closer the facility is located to the city centre. This is not the case in Prague and Amsterdam where parking fees are identical all over the city.
"Liityntäpysäköini" in Finland is "parcheggio di scambio" in Italy
Signposting policies were found rather inconsistent. 35 percent of the surveyed cities indicate that they install P+R signs on the main arterial roads at best, and 20 percent in the immediate vicinity of a P+R site only. The cities having an obvious aversion to signposting include Rome which is offering the highest number of P+R parking spaces (13 000) in the city area.
Looking at the national names for P+R sites in Europe is interesting as well. Just ask for "Liityntäpysäköini", if you need directions to the nearest P+R site in Finland. Motorists travelling in Sweden and Norway will face less difficulties since P+R is universally called "Infartsparkering" or "Innfartsparkering". In France and Switzerland, you have to look for "Parc Relais", "Parking Relais" or "Parking d'échange", while in southern Italy you should watch out for "parcheggio di scambio" signs. In the Netherlands, the established name for P+R is "Transferium". All other survey cities, i.e. more than 50 percent, use "Park and Ride" or the shorter "P+R" on most signs. This at least is where European harmonisation is evident.
EuroTests - EuroTest 2009 - Park & Ride
