High Temperature and Heavy Rainfall stimulate Car Drivers to choose for Parking Garages when visiting City Centers

Editie: 31 - Global vs. Local

Published on: 24 juni 2024

---

Introduction

The car is still a popular mode of transportation when visiting a city center. It appears that in the Netherlands, the car is used in approximately 25 percent of all arrivals in city centers (CBS, 2022). Despite the fact that more and more fossil fuel cars will be banned from city centers, the demand of parking will stay at a high level because many fossil cars will be replaced by electrical and (autonomous) shared cars (e.g. Spurling, 2020). To host these cars for a short or long time period in and around city centers, a variety of parking facilities are available that can be grouped into three major types: off-street parking garages, off-street parking lots, and on-street parking spaces. Due to densification in city centers with mainly housing, more and more parking facilities are closed or moved as Park & Ride facility to the outskirts of the city centers or the city (e.g. Kirschner, 2021). Having a shortage of or having wrongly located parking facilities can result into extra high demand in certain parking facilities, illegal parking, or an increase of cruising cars looking for a free parking space (e.g. Assemi et al, 2020). Relocation of parking choices of visitors can also result into changes of pedestrian flows in shopping access streets and the centers of shopping areas (e.g. Van der Waerden et al, 2012). Previous parking studies have shown that car drivers’ preferences for a specific type of parking facilities mainly depend on parking costs and walking distance (e.g. Ben Hassine et al, 2022). At some distance, other features contribute to the attractiveness of parking facilities such as presence of security, available opening hours, and number of charging points (Simićević & Milosavljević, 2023).

Due to climate change, weather conditions have become more extreme and therefore more influential on peoples’ behavior (e.g. Lavigne et al, 2023). Both temperature and rainfall reach much higher levels than before (e.g. Robinson et al, 2021). These changing conditions might also influence the travel behavior (including parking behavior) of individuals (e.g. Gössling et al, 2023). Higher temperatures and/or heavier rainfall might trigger car drivers to focus their search for a suitable parking space on roofed parking facilities and/or parking facilities close to their final destinations. In the field of transportation, various studies have been carried out with a focus on the relation between travelers’ behavior and weather conditions. Some examples are weather conditions and cycling behavior (e.g. De Kruijf et al, 2021), transit ridership (e.g. Anta Kashfi et al, 2016), daily mobility (e.g. Böcker et al, 2019), transportation demand (e.g. Petrovic et al, 2020), travel mode choice (e.g. Liu et al, 2015), the use of bicycle facilities (e.g. Nosal & Miranda-Moreno, 2014), and congestion on motorways (e.g. Van Stralen et al, 2015). In the context of parking behavior, studies have been carried out regarding the influence of weather conditions on parking duration on on-street parking facilities (e.g. Demir & Öz, 2023), on the speed of finding a suitable parking space (e.g. Chougule et al, 2023), on off-street parking occupancy rate predictions (e.g. Fokker et al, 2022), and on parking choice behavior of shoppers (e.g. Feng et al, 2019).

Until now, limited attention has been paid to the role of temperature and rainfall when car drivers are looking for a specific type of parking facility for their city center visits. Therefore, the aim of the study presented in this article is to explore car drivers’ preferences towards different types of parking facilities in relation to temperature and rainfall. The focus in this study is on car drivers’ sensitivity regarding their preferred parking type due to different temperature or rainfall levels. The study is a first exploration of this relationship in the context of city center visits. The remainder of this article is organized as follows. First, the adopted research approach is outlined followed by a brief overview of the sample used for the analyses. Next, some descriptive analyses are presented to show the relationships between parking type preferences and included weather conditions. The article ends with the conclusions and recommendations for practice and future research.

 

Research approach and data

To get insight into the relationship between temperature and rainfall and car drivers’ preferences regarding the type of parking facility the following research approach was set up. For different levels of temperature and rainfall, car drivers were invited in an online survey to indicate their preference for one of the types of parking facilities (on-street, parking lot, parking garage) when visiting a city center (Figure 1). The investigated levels of temperature are Hot, Mild, and Cold. For rainfall, the following levels were investigated: Heavy, Light (Drizzle), and No Rain. The survey also included some questions regarding parking and visit related experiences and personal characteristics of the respondents (see Khaliq, 2018). The survey was distributed among Belgian members of the online marketing organization PanelClix (www.panelclix.be).

Figure 1 Screenshot of online survey (Khaliq, 2018)

The data of 443 respondents could be included in the analyses. Table 1 presents some details of the respondents. It appears that the sample consists of a variety of individuals and that all separated categories are well represented.

Characteristics	Levels	Frequencies	Percentages
Gender   Age     Educational level       Car type     Big city experiences   Parking experiences	Female Male 45 years and younger Between 45 and 60 years 60 years and older Level 1 General education Level 2 Vocational education Level 3 Professional bachelor Level 4 Academic bachelor and master Small Medium Large Limited Extensive Mainly on-street parking Both on-street and off-street parking Mainly off-street parking	177 266 148 144 151 101 123 138 81 156 237 50 244 199 225 126 92	40.0 60.0 33.4 32.5 34.1 22.8 27.8 31.2 18.2 35.2 53.5 11.3 55.1 44.9 50.8 28.4 20.8

Table 1 Overview of sample characteristics (N=443)

 

Analyses

The first step of the analysis focuses on car drivers’ preferences for different temperature and rainfall levels. Figure 2 shows that preferences for the included parking types differ significantly (based on Chi-square test) between the different levels of temperature and rainfall. In the case of temperature, on-street parking is more popular than the other two parking types for average and low temperature. Parking garages are most preferred in case of high temperature. Regarding rainfall, it appears that on-street parking is most popular in the case of drizzle or no rainfall. In contrast, parking garages are more popular when it rains heavily.

Figure 2 Overview of car drivers’ preferences for investigated weather conditions

The next step of the analysis focuses on the overall sensitivity of car drivers’ parking type preferences when weather conditions change (Figure 3). The underlying question here is whether car drivers change their preference due to changing weather levels, expressing their sensitivity for investigated weather conditions. For both temperature and rainfall, it appears that approximately 54 percent is sensitive regarding their parking type preferences when the temperature and/or rainfall levels change. This means that they prefer a different parking facility for different temperature or rainfall levels.

Figure 3 Car drivers’ overall sensitivity for temperature and rainfall

A more detailed view on this sensitivity is shown in Figure 4 where different combinations of preferences are presented. The prescript ‘All’ stands for respondents who are not sensitive for the weather conditions and always prefer the same type of parking facility. As shown before, on-street parking is the most preferred type of parking facility. The other labels in the figure show what combinations are involved in respondents preferences. In this case, there is a clear distinction between the two weather conditions. In the case of temperature, more respondents switch between parking lot and parking garage while in the case of rainfall the switch between on-street parking and parking garage is more explicit.

Figure 4 combinations of parking type preferences for temperature and rainfall

 

Conclusions

The study presented in this article is a first step in the exploration of the relationship between temperature and rainfall levels and car drivers’ preferences for parking facility types. Within the limitations of the study, the study shows that the preferences of car drivers for specific type of parking facilities are related to temperature and rainfall levels. For practice, this insight can be used to evaluate an optimal number and distribution of parking facilities in and around city centers given the expected changes in temperature and rainfall levels. Optimizing the supply of parking in and around city centers includes finding a good balance between the different types of parking facilities. In addition, cities suffering from great differences between temperature and/or rainfall in summer and winter might use the results to differentiate the supply of parking facilities over the year.

To get a more precise picture of the investigated relationship, the study should be extended with more attributes of the parking facilities and more detailing of the weather condition levels. The current findings can also be analyzed in more detail using analytical models investigating for example the relationship between car drivers’ sensitivity and their personal and trips characteristics.

 

On the author – Peter van der Waerden

Peter van der Waerden studied Transportation at the National Academy of Planning, Transportation and Logistics in Tilburg and Human Geography at the State University of Utrecht. Since 1986, Peter is a lecturer/researcher at the Urban Planning and Transportation group. Peter provides education in Transportation Engineering and Geographic Information Systems. Peter’s main research areas concern the design and use of car, cycling, and pedestrian facilities with a focus on the relationship between these facilities and people’s travel decisions.

 

 

References

Anta Kashfi, S., Bunker, J,M. & Yigitcanlar, T. (2016) Modelling and Analyzing Effects of Complex Seasonality and Weather on an Area’s Daily Transit Ridership Rate, Journal of Transport Geography 54, 310-324.
Assemi, B., Baker, D. & Paz, A. (2020) Searching for On-street Parking: An Empirical Investigation of the Factors influencing Cruise Time, Transport Policy 97, 186-196.
Ben Hassine, S., Mraihi, R., Lachiheb, A. & Kooli, E. (2022) Modelling Parking Type Choice Behavior, International Journal of Transport Science and Technology 11, 653-664.
Böcker, L., Priya Uteng, T., Liu, C. & Dijst, M. (2019) Weather and Daily Mobility in International Perspective: A Cross-Comparison of Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish City Regions, Transportation Research Part D 77, 491-505.
CBS, Onderweg in Nederland 2022, Central Bureau of Statistics, Heerlen, the Netherlands.
Chougule, D.G., Sattar Shaikh, R. & Mali, A.S. (2023) IOT Based Smart Parking and Weather Monitoring System, Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research 10, f16-f22.
De Kruijf, J., Van der Waerden, P., Feng, T., Böcker, L., Van Lierop, D., Ettema, D. & Dijst, M. (2021) Integrated Weather Effects on e-Cycling in Daily Commuting: A Longitudinal Evaluation of Weather Effects on e_Cycling in the Netherlands, Transportion Research Part A 148, 305-315.
Demir, A. & Oz, A. (2023) Examining the Effect of Weather Conditions on On-Street Parking Variables, Journal of Architectural Science and Applications 8, 406-421.
Feng, N., Zhang, F., Lin, J., Zhai, J. & Du, X. (2019) Statistical Analysis and Prediction of Parking Behavior. 16th IFIP International Conference on Network and Parallel Computing (NPC).
Fokker, E.S., Koch, T., Van Leeuwen, M. & Dugundji, E.R. (2022) Short-Term Forecasting of Off-Street Parking Occupancy, Transportation Research Record 2676, 637-654.
Gössling, S., Neger, C., Steiger, R. & Bell, R. (2023) Weather, Climate Change, and Transport: A Review, Natural Hazards.
Jelena Simićević & Nada Milosavljević (2023) The impact of on-street and off-street parking regulations on parking type choice, Transportation Planning and Technology 46, 912-928, DOI: 10.1080/03081060.2023.2239214
Khaliq, A. (2018) Investigating Car Driver’s On-Street Parking Decisions, PhD thesis, School of Transportation, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium.
Kirschner, F. (2021) Parking and Competition for Space in Urban Neighborhoods: Residents’ Perceptions of Traffic Parking-related Conflicts, Journal of Transport and Land Use 14, 603-623.
Lavigne, E., Maltby, A., Côte, J.N., Weinberger, K.R., Hebbern, C., Vicedo-Cabrera, A,M., Wilk, P. (2023) The Effect Modification of Extreme Temperatures on Mental and Behavior Disorder by Environmental Factors and Individual-Level Characteristics, Environmental Research 219, 114999.
Liu, C., Susilo, Y.O. & Karlström, A. (2015) The Influence of Weather Characteristics Variability on Individual’s Travel Mode Choice in different Seasons and Regions in Sweden, Transport Policy 41, 147-158.
Nosal, T. & Miranda-Moreno, L.F. (2014) The Effect of Weather on the Use of North American Bicycle Facility: A Multi-City Analysis using Automatic Counts, Transportation Research Part A 66, 213-225.
Petrovic, D., Ivanovic, I., Doric, V. & Jovic, J. (2020) Impact of Weather Conditions on Travel Demand: The Most Common Research Methods and Applied Modes, Traffic Planning Review 32, 711-725.
Robinson, A., Lehmann, J., Barriopedro, D. (2021) Increasing Heat and Rainfall Extremes now far outside the Historical Climate, Climate and Atmoshere Science 45.
Spurling, N. (2020) Parking Futures: The Relationship between Parking Space, Everyday Life, and Travel Demand in the UK, Land Use Policy 91, 103872.
Van der Waerden, P. Hermans, M., Van de Coevering, P. & Timmermans, H. (2012) Spatial Developments along Routes between Parking Facilities and Central Shopping Area. In: Proceedings of 19th International Recent Advances in Retailing and Consumer Service Science, Vienna, Austria.
Van Stralen, W.J.H., Calvert, S.C. & Molin, E.J.E. (2015) The Influence of Adverse Weather Conditions of Probability of Congestion on Dutch Motorways, European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research 15, 482-500.

 

Mail the editors