Study on demand and characteristics of parking system in urban areas: A review

The increasing rate of private car usage in the urban areas as a result of fast-growing economy, derelict policies and subsidies are the main causes making car parking one of the main concerns for transport and traffic management all over the world. The coordination between parking policies and traffic management revealed how parking is becoming a barrier to the through-traffic operation. Also, it is responsible for the inefficient use of available resources, even the decisions are made on an ad-hoc basis while making policy. Hence, it is necessary to understand the parking choice behaviour and actual demand of parking space. In the last three decades, ample studies have been done to evaluate parking characteristics, to estimate the demand for parking and on driver's behaviour while choosing the parking space. This paper integrates all these aspects and presents the state-of-the-art review of models and studies on the parking system. Problems related to and due to the parking, various parking characteristics and their applications, parking choice behaviour of drivers, development of demand models considering various factors and review of parking policies as an integral part of the urban transport system are discussed in detail. Whilst underdeveloped, authors found the literatures suggest that greater attention should be given to metrics like ease of access, walk time, parking charges, parking guidance and information system, management, etc., at all stages of planning and policy formulation. Taken together, mentioned studies demonstrate useful information concerning the entire parking system. It also provides useful information to the planners and policy makers for planning, designing and evaluating parking system.