Cardiff Parking Study Reveals User Sensitivities

Cardiff School of
Planning and Geography
Short-Stay Car Parking Choice Behaviour: A Case
Study of Cardiff City Centre
1
Chao Qi
School of Planning and Geography
Cardiff University
September 2014

Cardiff School of
Study Background
• Dissertation for MSc Transport and Planning of Cardiff
University
• Cardiff Council is currently reviewing the parking policy for
short-stay parking users in Cardiff city centre
• The study was funded by the British Parking Association
through the John Heasman Bursary
2

Cardiff School of
Background --- from the literature review
• Individuals’ parking choice behaviour is influenced by various
factors, such as parking fares, parking-space availability, ease
of ingress/egress, distance to destination, parking safety and
comfortability, etc.
• Parking charge and parking-space supply management are the
core components of parking policies. Transport planners
usually use them as efficient tools to control the travel
demand for urban areas.
• Capturing parking users’ sensitivities to the changes in parking
pricing and availability can help decide the specific degree of
policy intervene to manage individuals’ parking behaviour.
3

Cardiff School of
Background --- from the literature review [2]
• Many previous studies have developed discrete choice models
to obtain parking users’ sensitivities to parking features for
different areas, such as the CBD of Edmonton, Oregon and
Sydney.
• However, these findings for other regions may not be suitable
in the context of Cardiff city centre. Parking users’ sensitivities
tend to vary across different local conditions.
• The study tries to identify short-stay parking users'
sensitivities to parking pricing and availability, in particular for
Cardiff city centre. The findings can provide useful references
to the parking policy making in this area.
4

Cardiff School of
Research Objectives
• What is the profile of short-stay parking users in Cardiff city
centre?
• What are the current parking issues in Cardiff city centre from
the users' perspective?
• What are people’s sensitivity to parking pricing and parking-
space availability?
5

Cardiff School of
Study-area Background and Motivation
• Cardiff city centre is one of the
most successful shopping hubs in
the UK with a huge footfall. An
efficient parking policy can ease
the congestion and externalities
for this area.
• A thorough study of people’s
parking behaviour can directly
contribute to the parking policy
making for Cardiff Council.
• Few specific parking studies,
especially in terms of the
discrete parking choice
modelling, have been conducted
in the context of Cardiff city
centre.
6

Cardiff School of
The empirical work was organised into three phases
1. Survey design
2. Survey testing and implementation
– Testing with experts
– Pilot survey
– Main survey
3. Survey data analysis
7

Cardiff School of
1. Survey design
– Pilot survey
– Main survey
8

Cardiff School of
Survey Design
The survey questionnaire included
three components:
• Background questions regarding
users’ age, travel purpose and
parking duration and others
• A rating question to obtain parking
users’ levels of satisfaction to
several parking features(pricing,
availability, pay machine
conditions and parking safety)
• A small stated preference discrete
choice experiment focusing on
parking pricing and parking-space
availability
9

Cardiff School of
Survey Design [2]
The survey questionnaire included
three components:
• Background questions regarding
users’ age, travel purpose and
parking duration and others
• A rating question to obtain parking
users’ levels of satisfaction to
several parking features(pricing,
availability, pay machine
conditions and parking safety)
• A small stated preference discrete
choice experiment focusing on
parking pricing and parking-space
availability
10

Cardiff School of
Stated Preference Discrete Choice Experiment
• Respondents were presented with hypothetical pricing and
parking-space availability scenarios at the Council’s short-stay
parking facilities and were asked to choose across four
alternatives:
1. Continue to park at Council’s short-stay parking space
2. Park elsewhere
3. Travel by other mode {specified by the respondent}
4. Not make the trip
11…

Cardiff School of
Stated Preference Discrete Choice Experiment
• The experiment looked at trade-offs between two attributes
– Parking pricing, defined as potential increase in parking fees, and
– Parking availability, defined as time to find a parking space
• Parking price increase included six levels:
• Parking availability’ included four levels
12
1 2 3 4 5 6
+£0.50 +£1.00 +£1.50 +£2.00 +£2.50 +£3.00
1 2 3 4
Immediately 2 minutes 4 minutes 6 minutes

Cardiff School of
1. Survey design
– Pilot survey
– Main survey
13

Cardiff School of
Testing with Parking Experts
• British Parking Association
• Cardiff City Council
• Transport professionals
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Cardiff School of
Pilot survey
• A pilot survey has been conducted prior to the main survey on
7th and 9th in July 2014.
• The pilot survey obtained a total of 43 respondents from four
parking places in Cardiff city centre: St. Andrews Crescent,
North Road, Cardiff City Hall and Sophia Gardens.
• The pilot survey helped to determine the survey time and
survey locations for the main survey.
• The rationalities of the designed survey questions, especially
the stated-preference discrete choice experiment, has been
verified through analysing the data from the pilot survey.
15

Cardiff School of
Main Survey Implementation
• Face-to-face survey has been conducted at two main short-stay
parking places around the city centre: Cardiff City Hall (CF10 3ND)
and St Andrews Crescent (CF10 3DB).
• Four interviewers collected data in the main survey during a period
of six weekdays in 2014(Monday, Tuesday and Thursday during 14-
18 July; Monday Tuesday and Wednesday during 21-25 July). The
survey time is from 9:00am to 12:00am each day.
16

Cardiff School of
Survey Locations: Cardiff City Hall and St Andrews
Crescent
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Cardiff School of
Research Findings
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Cardiff School of
Research Objectives
centre?
space availability?
19

Cardiff School of
• The main survey has obtained a total of 233 respondents from
short-stay parking places around Cardiff city centre.
• Among these 233 respondents, 106 are male parking users
and the other 127 are female parking users.
• The majority of the parking users travel from the Cardiff local
area (79.0%). 15.9% of parking users are from surrounding
areas such as Newport, Swansea and Bristol.
20

Cardiff School of
Individuals aged from 35 to 44 account for the majority
of parking users
21
12.4%
22.7%
29.2%
20.2%
13.3%
2.1%
Percentages of parking users' age groups
17-24
25-34
35-44
45-55
55-65
Over 65

Cardiff School of
55.3% of parking users travel for shopping or leisure,
and 28.3% come for work or business reasons
22
40.3%
28.3%
15.0%
16.3%
Percentages of parking users' travel purposes
Shopping
Work/Business
Leisure
Other

Cardiff School of
Age Group and travel Purpose crosstabulation
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Travel Purpose Total
Shopping Work/Business Leisure Other
Age Group 17-24 Count 9 9 4 7 29
% within Age Group 31.0% 31.0% 13.8% 24.1% 100.0%
25-34 Count 21 11 15 6 53
% within Age Group 39.6% 20.8% 28.3% 11.3% 100.0%
35-44 Count 32 21 7 8 68
% within Age Group 47.1% 30.9% 10.3% 11.8% 100.0%
45-55 Count 14 17 5 11 47
% within Age Group 29.8% 36.2% 10.6% 23.4% 100.0%
55-65 Count 16 7 3 5 31
% within Age Group 51.6% 22.6% 9.7% 16.1% 100.0%
Over 65 Count 2 1 1 1 5
% within Age Group 40.0% 20.0% 20.0% 20.0% 100.0%
Total Count 94 66 35 38 233
% within Age Group 40.3% 28.3% 15.0% 16.3% 100.0%

Cardiff School of
On weekdays, 58.4% of parking users travel to Cardiff
city centre without other adult companions; 79.8% of
parking users don’t bring children with them
24
58.4%30.5%
7.7% 3.4%
Percentages of travel group
size (adults)
1
2
3
4
79.8%
12.9%
5.6% 1.7%
Percentages of travel group size
(children)
0
1
2
3 or more

Cardiff School of
The mean short-stay parking duration is 3.10 hrs.
Parking users who choose to park for 2 or 5 hours
account for the largest part
25
39
62
40
18
74
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1 or less 2 3 4 5
Frequencies
Hours
Distribution of short-stay parking users' parking duration

Cardiff School of
Parking duration and travel purpose crosstabulation
26
Travel Purpose Total
Shopping Work/Business Leisure Other
Parking
duration
1 or
less
Count 9 13 3 14 39
% within
Parking_duratoin
23.1% 33.3% 7.7% 35.9% 100.0%
2 Count 30 15 9 8 62
% within
Parking_duratoin
48.4% 24.2% 14.5% 12.9% 100.0%
3 Count 20 11 4 5 40
% within
Parking_duratoin
50.0% 27.5% 10.0% 12.5% 100.0%
4 Count 9 5 3 1 18
% within
Parking_duratoin
50.0% 27.8% 16.7% 5.6% 100.0%
5 Count 26 22 16 10 74
% within
Parking_duratoin
35.1% 29.7% 21.6% 13.5% 100.0%
Total Count 94 66 35 38 233
% within
Parking_duratoin
40.3% 28.3% 15.0% 16.3% 100.0%

Cardiff School of
27.5% of travellers park at the current location at
least once a week
27
3.9%
13.7%
9.9%
18.5%37.8%
16.3%
Percentages of individuals' parking frequency
Every weekday
2-3 times a week
Once a week
2-3 times a month
Once a month
First time

Cardiff School of
The majority of parking users choose these locations
because of the short distance to destination
28
68.7%
9.9%
15.5%
2.1% 3.0% 0.9%
Percentages of reasons for parking location choices
Close to destination
Easy to find a parking space
Reasonable parking price
It is safe to park here
Only car park I know
Other

Cardiff School of
62.7% of parking users can find a parking space
immediately upon arrival
29
62.7%
30.5%
6.9%
Percentages of searching time for parking spaces
Immediately
1-5 minutes
6-20 minutes

Cardiff School of
86.7% of parking users can reach their trip destinations
from parking spaces on foot within 5 minutes
30
86.7%
10.7%
2.6%
Percentages of walking time to destinations
1-5 minutes
6-10 minutes
Above 10 minutes

Cardiff School of
Relations across parking users’ profiles
• Chi-square tests are developed to identify the relations
between parking users’ profiles
It is found that:
• Parking users who travel for work purposes tend to travel
alone, while people coming for shopping or leisure are more
likely to bring companions with them.
• Parking users who travel for work reasons tend to park more
frequently than the other users who come for shopping or
leisure.
• Female parking users tend to visit Cardiff city centre for
shopping or leisure, while male parking users tend to travel
for work or business purposes.
31

Cardiff School of
Research Objectives
centre?
space availability?
32

Cardiff School of
Percentages of ratings for different parking features
(1 represents very ‘dissatisfied’ and 5 represents very
‘satisfied’)
Ratings
Features
1 2 3 4 5
Parking charge 4.7% 10.3% 31.8% 32.2% 21.0%
Ease of finding a
parking space
2.1% 8.6% 21.9% 33.5% 33.9%
Clarity of
information on
pay machines
3.9% 9.4% 18.9% 34.3% 33.5%
Range of
payment options
3.0% 9.9% 17.2% 38.2% 31.8%
Personal safety 0.0% 0.4% 8.6% 41.2% 49.8%
Vehicle safety 0.0% 0.9% 11.6% 46.4% 41.2%
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Cardiff School of
Potential issues in the parking service
• 15% of parking users complain that the tariff of short-stay
parking in Cardiff city centre is expensive.
• 10.7% of respondents are dissatisfied with the parking
availability. Parking spaces are hard to find in late time
periods.
• 13.3% of parking users are dissatisfied with the information
clarity of payment machines. This is mainly caused by the
lengthy and confusing payment guidance. Meanwhile, 12.9%
of respondents are dissatisfied with the payment options. Pay
machines sometimes fail to support payment by cards.
34

Cardiff School of
Research Objectives
centre?
space availability?
35

Cardiff School of
Parking users’ sensitivities to parking features
• Binary logistic regression has been developed to identify
parking users’ parking possibility under the changes in parking
charge and parking availability
• 𝑙𝑜𝑔
𝑃 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑘
𝑃 𝑛𝑜𝑡_𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑘
= 3.034 − 1.492 ∙ 𝐼𝑁𝐶𝑅_𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇 − 0.226 ∙ 𝑇𝐼𝑀𝐸
• To general parking users, a £1 increase in parking charge will
decrease the log odds of continuing to park by 1.492 (the
probability will be 0.225 times as much as the previous
probability). Similarly, a one-minute increase in searching time
will decrease the log odds by 0.226 (the possibility will be
0.797 times as much as the previous one).
36

Cardiff School of
Taste variations across various parking user groups
• Parking users with different profiles tend to have different
sensitivities to parking pricing and availability.
• The study tries to consider the influence of parking users’
travelling and personal characteristics into the modelling and
finds that:
• Compared with those who travel alone to Cardiff city centre,
parking users who travel with companions are less sensitive to
the increase in parking charge.
• 𝑙𝑜𝑔
= 3.057 − 1.648 ∙ 𝐼𝑁𝐶𝑅 𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇 − 0.201 ∙ 𝑇𝐼𝑀𝐸
+0.251 ∙ 𝐼𝑁𝐶𝑅_𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇 ∙ 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑖𝑛
37

Cardiff School of
Taste variations across various parking user groups [2]
• Parking users who travel for shopping or leisure purposes are
more sensitive to the searching time for parking spaces than
those who are less free in parking location choices, like
working population.
• 𝑙𝑜𝑔
= 3.074 − 1.530 ∙ 𝐼𝑁𝐶𝑅 𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇 − 0.285 ∙ 𝑇𝐼𝑀𝐸
+0.121 ∙ 𝑇𝐼𝑀𝐸 ∙ 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘
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Cardiff School of
Taste variations across various parking user groups [3]
• Parking users aged from 25-44 are more sensitive to the
increases in parking price than individuals belonging to other
age groups.
• 𝑙𝑜𝑔
= 3.059 − 1.212 ∙ 𝐼𝑁𝐶𝑅_𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇 − 0.276 ∙ 𝑇𝐼𝑀𝐸
−0.489 ∙ 𝐼𝑁𝐶𝑅_𝐶𝑂𝑆𝑇 ∙ 𝐴𝑔𝑒25_44
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Cardiff School of
Recommendations for future research
• Future studies are recommended to analyse parking users’
behaviour in the context of multiple parking types such as off-
street private car parks, multistory parking and park-and-ride,
etc.
• Besides parking charge and availability, future studies can
analyse the impacts of other parking features on parking
choice behaviour, such as parking safety and comfortability.
• Multinomial logit or nested logit models are suggested if
future studies can obtain more thorough data to classify
individuals’ parking choices into more categories.
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Cardiff School of
Thank You !
Chao Qi
Supervisor: Dr Dimitris Potoglou
MSc Transport and Planning
School of Planning and Geography
Cardiff University
41

Cardiff Parking Study Reveals User Sensitivities

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