Modeling the impact of parking price policy on free-floating carsharing: Case study for Zurich, Switzerland. (April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Balac, Milos; Ciari, Francesco; Axhausen, Kay W.
• Is Part Of: Transportation research. Volume 77(2017)
• Page Start: 207
• Page End: 225
• Publication Date: 2017-04
• Subjects: Carsharing -- Free-floating -- Parking -- MATSim; Transportation -- Periodicals; Transportation -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; 388.011
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2017.01.022
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0968-090X

Abstract

Highlights: We present a methodology for modeling the influence of parking price policies on free-floating carsharing. Increase of the parking prices leads to the increase of the usage of free-floating vehicles. Free-floating vehicles use public parking spaces more efficiently than private vehicles. With increasing parking prices, parking occupancy by free-floating vehicles becomes more homogenous in space. Abstract: The research on carsharing has already shown that a non-negligible part of carsharing members give up a vehicle after joining a carsharing program, or avoid a vehicle purchase. This arguably reduces overall parking space needed. This might well be one of the most important impacts of a carsharing program on the transportation system, but also one of the least researched. The rapid diffusion of free-floating carsharing, which for its very nature might have a stronger impact on parking, makes the relationship between carsharing and parking an appealing topic for new research. This work presents a method for the investigation of this relationship using an agent-based simulation and explores the impacts of different parking prices on the demand for free-floating carsharing in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. Three levels of free-floating fleet-size in the city of Zurich coupled with three levels of parking prices were simulated. The obtained results show that free-floating vehicles are able to use parking spaces more efficiently than private vehicles. Moreover, the average parking occupancy tends to be more homogeneous with higher fleet-size of free-floating carsharing and with the increase of parking prices, thus avoiding spatial parking pressure peaks.