Converting a car park into a Park and Ride facility
Poor public transport connectivity is one of the main reasons why commuters avoid using public means of transport to ride to work. This is the result of an international survey conducted by the human resources solutions provider Kelly Services in 2007. And: Only 40 percent of respondents use public means of transport to reach their place of employment.
The situation may improve by building P+R sites at strategic points and offering the required capacities. The concept is simple: Leave your car in a car park near a public transport stop and transfer to a bus or train to ride downtown. Park and Ride is as simple as that.
P+R diverts traffic from city centres
The advantages are clear. Fewer motorists enter the city centres in search of parking spaces. As a result, you have less air and noise pollution and better utilisation of public means of transport. Motorists are saved the trouble of having to look for a parking space. Visitors who are not familiar with the location can get themselves comfortably chauffeured to their destination, often even putting in less money and time as would be the case had they used their own car.
Experience in major German cities shows that P+R sites reduce private transport by about four percent. Example: In 2007, three percent of all passengers in the Munich public transport network used P+R. At first glance, this is not a high figure. But three percent correspond to 25 650 cars. Three percent fewer cars mean 25 650 times less exhaust emissions and noise.
Naturally, certain conditions must be met to make a P+R site efficient. P+R makes sense where public transport does not provide seamless access to the destination "city centre", or where service intervals are very long or irregular. Therefore, before introducing or extending P+R facilities, the public transport services should be optimised, if required. Failure to do so could backfire, convincing users of public transport to rather use their own car when travelling into the city. Further, where sufficient and low-cost parking is available in a city centre, motorists will be even less motivated to switch to public transport.
Make P+R facilities an integral part of your transport concepts
Especially where larger sites are concerned, planners may find themselves in a dilemma. On the one hand, P+R facilities are most suitably located in close proximity to a city to appeal to a high number of potential users. On the other hand, the distance for motorists to reach a P+R site should be as short as possible. Where a P+R facility is located close to a city, the distance travelled by car to the site is usually longer than the remaining distance downtown to be covered by public transport. Commuters who normally use only public transport might be incentivised to use parking facilities available in proximity to the city. The result would be higher traffic volumes and declining use of public transport especially in the greater area of a city. The above shows that new P+R sites should be part of the transport concepts for a city and its environs.
Generally, planners should analyse the target user group of a P+R site. In conurbations, people who commute into the city every day to work are the key target group. Examples in Germany show that commuters account for about 80 percent of the users. In addition, the sites should also appeal to tourists and shoppers or event-goers in order to optimise usage outside office hours.
Development and maintenance are expensive and should be cost-effective Planners identify the required number of P+R parking spaces for a city by means of a so-called global prognosis. This involves identifying the number of people who commute into a city and its environs for work and who may perceive P+R as an alternative to the car. The result is increased by about ten percent to include other commuters as for instance shoppers. To be able to accurately assess the demand and derive the required parking space capacity, travel distances are investigated by questioning commuters and counting the users of public transport as well as recording the licence plates of the parked cars.
Developing and maintaining P+R sites is no cheap affair. Constructing one parking space in Germany costs about 5 000 Euros, and twice as much if it is a parking deck, not counting purchase of the property. P+R sites featuring more than 1 000 parking spaces involve considerable expenses with construction costs totalling no less than 25 000 Euros per parking space. Not forgetting operating costs which amount to 300 Euros per parking space and year, as computed by Munich-based Park & Ride GmbH. The Region Île-de-France transport network in France calculates 30 to 60 Euros per year for an open-air parking space, and ten times as much for a multi-storey car park or underground parking i.e. annually between 450 and 760 Euros per parking space.
EuroTests - EuroTest 2009 - Park & Ride
