Assessment of parking policy in the case of tire II city

Abstract

Unprecedented development in India is not limited to tier I cities. Recent data reveals tier II and tier III cities are also being developed at a rapid rate. This development is linked with increase in urban population; as per a 2018 World Bank report. Increase in the population is associated with increase in vehicle ownership; which is associated with a greater number of vehicles on the roads. Considering this increase the rate of development of transport infrastructure is lower in tier II and tier III cities in India. Therefore, problems like traffic congestion, unorganized parking, pollution, pedestrian safety concerns are growing. Due to the rise in the number of private vehicles on the road, parking has become a vital consideration when creating management and policy plans for transportation in cities. A study carried out in Aurangabad, Maharashtra for understanding the Parking Characteristics and to quantify the adherence to the parking policy and guidelines. Parking surveys have been executed at six locations throughout the city, typically at commercial and mixed-use areas. The characteristics of on-street and off-street parking were examined in context of parking statistics, such as parking accumulation, parking occupancy, parking load, average parking duration, parking index or parking efficiency. Some areas, even after having sufficient parking capacity suffered from congestion because of improper management and lack of availability of required signages, bays marking and other smart parking techniques. For quantifying the adherence towards the parking policy regulations method of “Parking Performance Indexing (PPI)” or “Level of Service” is used. The terms PPI defines the service quality of any parking facility. Evaluation of the parking facility is required to determine how successfully a parking lot manages overall demand, how parking-friendly it is, and what kind of improvements are required to enhance service quality. This study emphasizes on development of methodology to assess performance of onstreet and off-street parking in urban areas from user’s as well as management agencies perspective. The focus of this study is on choosing an appropriate method or technique to measure Parking Area Level of Service from user’s perspective, in order to evaluate the quality of the parking area operating in the Indian setting. Parking costs, search time, walking distance to destination, and demand/capacity ratio have all been taken into consideration as basic quantitative criteria and Perception towards Safety & Security as qualitative parameter for determining service level. K-means clustering and other clustering techniques have been employed in the study to define the PLOS criteria for all five criteria. In addition, a single value index called parking performance index has been calculated which combines all the considered parameters into single value by using Min-Max Normalization process. For calculating PLOS for management agency’s perspective, the existing criteria given by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in 2010 will be used for on-street parking. For offstreet parking PLOS will be defined by calculating the Parking Index according to IIT Bombay document. It is observed that the parking search time and walk time to destination are directly related to the demand by capacity ratio. So, parking occupancy possess highest relative importance among the selected indicators. This study will help in giving suggestions to improve and enhance the existing parking policy to improve service quality of parking.