Effect of cruising for parking in illegal on-street parking schemes in urban environment

Abstract

The total amount of daily trips made in a town is outstanding due to urban areas are the most important poles of economic activity in a region and, therefore, where most of the trips end. The trips made by private vehicles performed through the city represent around 30% and a 50% of all trips are done in the metropolitan area; however, important variations are registered depending on the city (for example, referred only to the trips made through the city, private vehicles represents almost 60% in Brussels but nearly 15% in Barcelona). Regarding to this, all journeys, including private vehicles public transport and soft mode, are made, obviously, to achieve a concrete destination, usually predefined before the beginning of the trip. In private vehicle journeys, it is worthy to remark that almost all trips carried out begin without a parking lot secured (only people who made a reservation or own/rent a car park lot have it). This problem only appears with private transport because public transport as well as soft modes requires no parking lot to finalize their journeys. The lack of secured space to park in destination in most of the cases implies that the driver must search for a lot when arrives to the end of the trip, commonly known as cruising for parking. In the case of 4-wheel vehicles the problem appears due to they need a greater amount of space to park. This requirement implies that, often, the offer does not suit the demand due to multiple reasons such as lack of physical space, economic cost of a parking lot, location of the lot, need of cruising for parking, etc. implying the appearance of on-street illegal parking whether it is on the sidewalk or on the side of the road. The appearance of illegality implies the reduction of the commercial speed and an increase of the congestion making an inefficient use of the infrastructure.