Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Analysis of the PARKAGENT model confirms that the structure of the street network weakly
influences the parking dynamics in the area and the dynamics of the system can thus be character-
ised by aggregate parameters. The most important element for the parking dynamics is the aver-
age fraction of free places that guarantees that the parking search will not take more than 1-2 min.
An engineering rule of thumb is that this fraction should be below 85% (Shoup, 2006). The analy-
sis using the PARKAGENT model shows that this fraction can be increased to 92%-93%, that
is, the number of parking permissions in the area can be essentially increased. An important
theoretical result is that cruising for parking in the circumstances of an increasing occupation rate
(residents' cruising at the end of the working day) results in the essential aggregation of the yet
free parking places. The majority of drivers will cruise over the areas of 100% occupation; the
remaining places are for the lucky drivers who, by chance, get close to the emerging clusters of
free parking places.
9.4.7 S
tudying
r
eal
-w
orld
P
arking
with
the
Parkagent M
odel
Real-world applications of the PARKAGENT model are, currently, of two kinds. The first regards
the establishment of new and removing of old parking facilities and the influence of these changes
on the parking situation in the surrounding area. The second focuses on the parking situation in
the city in the future based on scenarios of urban development and population growth. Examples
of the first kind include establishing a new parking garage of up to 900 places at the margin of the
relatively isolated business centre (1.5 × 0.7 km, 20,000 workers) in Ramat Gan, one of Tel Aviv's
metropolitan cities, and closing Antwerp central city park (5000 places) along the Scheldt River that
would be turned into a walking embankment (Figure 9.11). An example of the second kind is the
use of the PARKAGENT model for estimating the scenarios of transportation development of the
Tel Aviv metropolitan city of Bat Yam.
In Ramat Gan, the improvement in cruising time and the distance to the destination were esti-
mated for different capacities of a new parking garage (300, 600 or 900 places) and different sce-
narios of the area development until 2020 that all include constructions on the on-surface parking
lots in this area. From the owner's point of view, the larger the garage, the higher the expected profit,
but the problem is whether drivers would park there. The PARKAGENT model analysis provides
estimates of the number of drivers that will use the new garage for each development scenario.
Unexpectedly, the model study points to the critical importance of the signage system that informs
drivers which of the parking lots have vacant places at a given moment. With such a system, the
garage of 900 places is profitable and will be fully used, despite an average longer walk from the
garage to the office. Without the signage system, an essential fraction of drivers will cruise for too
long, 10 min and longer.
FIGURE 9.11
A general view of the Ramat Gan and Antwerp projects. (Middle figure: Courtesy of Dr. Karel
Martens, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.)
