A reform of car parking organisation as an instrument for creating sustainable urban regions

Panel: Panel 3. Sustainable transport and land use

Authors:
Paul C. Pfaffenbichler, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Günter Emberger, Vienna University of Technology

Abstract

Sustainability is one of today's major challenges. Numerous studies provide evidence that cities worldwide are not sustainable. Neither land use nor transport are organised in a sustainable manner. Indicators to measure sustainability include urban sprawl, air pollution and consumption of non- renewable resources of energy. The transport and land use planning strategies of the last decades have not created sustainable cities and urban regions. Research results indicate that the instruments used, for example public transport investments, parking charges, road pricing, company transport plans or public awareness campaigns were not powerful enough. Empirical evidence shows that their ability to reverse unsustainable trends was limited. E.g. car use and hence fossil fuel consumption is still increasing worldwide. Recent research, making use of a dynamic integrated land use and transport model, shows that the approach "more of the same", i.e. more public transport, higher parking charges and road pricing etc., is hardly sufficient to achieve the objective of sustainability. Even if prices would be increased far beyond politically acceptable levels. As a conclusion the use of new, innovative instruments has to be taken into account. A detailed analysis of generalised costs of different modes of transport is used to detect the key elements which are determining transport user behaviour. These were found to be access and egress to public transport stops and parking places. Based on these findings a reform of car parking organisation is suggested as an alternative instrument to achieve sustainable cities and urban regions. The capability of this instrument is demonstrated using a simulation case study of the city Vienna. In this case study the performance of the proposed car parking organisation is compared with three more conventional strategies: "continue as before" and two different types of urban road charges.