What is a parking?
Parking is one of the essential elements of any workable transportation system. Parking characteristics normally are influence by the size of the city, the other modes of transportation available to commuters and the size and importance of the Central Business District. This chapter provides basic information on how to determine parking needs, the dimensions of parking spaces and appropriate signs. As with all traffic management questions, one should take advantage of professional advice and utilize proper reference materials for assistance in developing the best possible system for a municipality.
Parking space requirements vary by land use. They also vary by city. This variability means that no magic numbers exist to define the amount of parking required for a certain land use in a certain city. A true understanding of the parking needs in a city can only be realized through some basic evaluations. First, it must be realized that parking studies are basically an analysis of demand and supply. The demand results from the necessity to “store” vehicles while the vehicle’s occupants complete their trips. This “demand” can vary with the time of day, week and month. The duration and or need to store vehicles, rate of turnover are also important parking demand factors.
The supply of “storage” is basically the amount of on street and off-street parking that is available to meet demand. This supply can be increased by providing more area for parking use or by reducing the length of time a vehicle may be in a given space, thereby, increasing the use of area. Either of these decisions can have significant impact and must be well thought out.
Among the techniques to examine parking supply and demand characteristics are:
Supply:
1. Parking Inventories – a rather basic comprehensive cataloguing of all public and private parking spaces within a given location and the manner in which these spaces are managed.
Demand:
1. A Parking Usage Studies – an analysis of the number of times a parking space is used in a given time period as well as the average length of stay of a parked vehicle.
2. Parking Accumulation Studies – a determination of which days of the week and hours of the day parking areas are most used.
3. License Plate Checks – a reliable technique for determining parking duration and turnover. It is also used to obtain data on length of stay, illegal parking, and enforcement.
Source: Infraser.ro
