Parking Supply Management as Strategy to Reduce Congestion and Improving Mobility in Core Area: Case Study of Bhopal City

Abstract

The study aims at assessing possibilities to reduce congestion and improving the mobility in core area with parking supply management strategy. Irrespective of incalculable amounts of wasted fuel and carbon emissions, vehicles consumed the precious street space for 95% of the time and require a parking spot at each end of the journey ie. at home, market and office. Every car owner park the car as closely as possible, this results in a great demand for parking spaces in the core area and other area where the activities are concentrated. A shortage of parking space increases the cursing time for same and induces traffic congestion. This has caused illegal parking on the carriageway thus resulting in traffic chaos, congestion delay and reduces the efficiency of mobility. Parking policy based on “Minimum Parking Requirements”, consider parking as infrastructure which always been focused to increase the parking requirement. In other words to meet the demand regardless of available transit coverage, land use density, walkability, and parking management practices. Ironically, more parking invites more car use, contributing to traffic jams, toxic air and with this a miserable urban life. There has been many changes in parking policy in the cities around the world. They has shifted from conventional parking requirement to the parking maximum requirement in which the supply is restricted along with high parking prices. Taking a case of an Indian City, Bhopal, the impact of bringing the same strategies of supply caps, pricing, residential permits etc has been assessed in the study. Inadequate parking charges and minimum parking requirements in India reduces the average generalized cost for personal vehicular modes. The study has tried to use parking as tool to increase the Average Generalized cost (AGC) for cars and two wheelers by increasing parking fees. On the basis of land value of the land in locality, parking charges are calculated. Various scenarios are generated on the basis of these charges for stated preference survey. These survey is conducted ward wise and it is found that large number of commuters are willing to pay parking charges. Further the revenue generated from these parking fees could be use to improve Non-motorized transportation NMT and public transportation of the city. Parking supply has been mapped according to requirement (demand) of parking iii during day time as well as night time by considering mainly three parameters ie. land use, Public transportation and Road width. Recommendations are made to regulate on street parking during day time as well as night time, limit the overall supply, impose penalty for violating Development control regulation (DCR) norms and enforce parking rules with the aim of discouraging use of private vehicle to reduce congestion and to improve mobility by encouraging public transit use