Informal Park-And-Ride Behaviour

Abstract

As a response to sustainability requests, transport management aims to reduce car use encouraging modal shift to public transport and non-motorized modes. Therefore, parking management in central urban areas typically involves implementation of restrictive measures (time limits and parking charge) in order to enable parking to “priority users” while discouraging others to park there. Users who, as a reaction to parking measures, give up parking in the central area look for an adequate travel option. Some of them self-initiatively found a way not to completely give up driving: they travel by car in one part of the trip, then park the car and reach the destination by public transport. This travel pattern is known as “informal Park-and-Ride“ (PnR). If such behaviour does not lead to parking problem spill-over from central to peripheral areas, it should be estimated as a relatively positive, because even though it partly involves driving, the critical “last mile” is travelled by public transport. Therefore, as PnR demand grows and reaches the significant level, policy-makers should consider its formalisation and integration into the urban transport policy. The aim of this paper is to identify informal PnR users and to investigate their motives, requests and preferences towards this option. The findings should be of importance when planning and developing formal PnR sites, which effectiveness can largely increase user willingness to accept restrictive parking measures in the city central area, i.e. to adopt more sustainable travel behaviour. Necessary data were collected by surveys at informal PnR sites in Belgrade.