Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
9.4.5 B
ehaVioural
r
uleS
of
the
i
nSPectorS
Different from driver agents, the rules of inspector agent behaviour in the PARKAGENT model
are very simple just because they are established by the municipality. An inspector agent advances
along its
inspector path
, which is constructed from the segments of the street network at a walking,
biking or motorbike speed. An inspector agent observes parked cars on both sides of the path and
compares the properties of the car with the permissions of a parking place. In the situation where
the parking rule is violated, the inspector agent remains at a place for the time needed to issue a fine,
where the latter depends on the type of violation.
9.4.6 Parkagent M
odel
V
alidation
and
a
nalySiS
of
the
c
ollectiVe
P
arking
P
henoMena
An urban planner is usually interested in the fraction of drivers who search for parking for too long
and/or park too far away from the destination; these people can vote differently in the next election.
Drivers who park at a distance can also change their mode of travel to public transport, while the
low speed of the cars that cruise for parking contributes to traffic congestion. The PARKAGENT
model output includes two basic distributions that supply this information: the drivers' search time
and the distance between the parking place and the destination. These distributions reflect the bal-
ance between arrivals to and departures from the area, the spatial pattern of destinations and the
amount of parking places (Levy et al., 2012).
Importantly, the distribution of the distance between the residents' night parking and the
residence can be estimated based on field observations at night and the data on the drivers'
addresses and can thus be used for model validation. In Levy et al. (2012), the distribution of
the distances generated by the model is compared to the one constructed in the field survey, for
900 cars for the densely populated Basel residential area in Tel Aviv, where the number of park-
ing places is about 9,000 and the number of registered cars is about 10,000. As can be seen in
Figure 9.10, the correspondence is very good. The same should be done in every city in which
the model is applied.
35
30
Field observations
PARKAGENT, Tel Aviv road
network
25
20
15
10
5
0
30
60
90
150
180
240
Distance from destination
210
270
300
330
360
390
420+
FIGURE 9.10
Distributions of the distance between the residents' parking place at night and the residence as
estimated during a survey in the Basel residential area, Tel Aviv, and generated by the PARKAGENT model.
(From Levy, N. et al.,
Transportmetrica
, 9(9), 773, 2012.)
