Effect of Parking Charges at Transit Stations on Park-and-Ride Mode Choice

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of increasing parking charges at park-and-ride stations on mode choice for current park-and-ride users. To address this objective, a stated preference (SP) survey was designed to study commuters’ willingness to pay for parking at park-and-ride transit stations. The SP survey was conducted at the 14 busiest park-and-ride transit stations in Greater Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. The survey data were then used to model mode choice for longer-distance commuting trips by considering three major options: automobile all-way, transit all-way, and park-and-ride. A heteroscedastic multinomial logit model for stated preference of modal choices was estimated. The model included several major factors that were found to influence mode choice at park-and-ride stations. The estimated model parameters were then used to investigate direct and cross elasticities of parking charges at park-and-ride stations to mode choices. The model results show that an increase in parking charges at park-and-ride stations is more likely to divert current park-and-ride users to the transit all-way option compared with the private car all-way option.