Park and ride (or incentive parking) facilities are car parks with connections to public transport that allow commuters and other people wishing to travel into city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system (rapid transit, light rail or commuter rail), or carpool for the rest of their trip. The vehicle is stored in the car park during the day and retrieved when the owner returns. Park and rides are generally located in the suburbs of metropolitan areas or on the outer edges of large cities.
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Relatively little current research exists on the benefits and disbenefits of Park and Ride schemes. Park and ride schemes are often marketed as a way to avoid the difficulties and cost of parking within the city centre, but it has also been suggested that there is 'a lack of clear-cut evidence for park-and-ride’s widely assumed impact in reducing congestion'.[1]
In theory, Park and ride facilities allow commuters to avoid the stress of driving a congested part of their journey and facing scarce, expensive city centre parking. They are meant to avoid congestion by encouraging people to use public transport as opposed to their own personal vehicles. They do so by making it easier for people to use public transport in an urban area with traffic congestion, and often to reduce the availability of car parks to encourage this behaviour.
Park and ride facilities serve the needs of commuters who live beyond practical walking distance from the train station or bus stop which offers service to the city center.
Park and ride facilities may suit commuters with alternative fuel vehicles, which often have reduced range, since the facility may be closer to home than the ultimate destination. They also are useful as a fixed meeting place for those carsharing or carpooling or using kiss and ride (see below). Also, some transit operators use park and ride facilities to encourage more efficient driving practices by reserving parking spaces for low emission designs, high occupancy vehicles, or carsharing.
Most facilities provide services such as passenger waiting areas and toilets. Travel information, such as leaflets and posters, may be provided. At larger facilities, extra services such as a travel office, food shop, car wash, cafeteria, other shops and services may be provided. These are often encouraged by municipal operators to improve the attraction of using park and ride.
However, research undertaken in the United Kingdom suggests that the impact upon congestion may be limited. Looking at both the UK policy background and evidence from an award-winning scheme in Cambridge, Jonathan Manns notes 'an Hellerian ‘Catch-22’ situation, whereby the survival of local politicians is dependent upon its continuation, irrespective of its actual successes'. In Cambridge it is suggested that 'there does not appear to be evidence of an overall drop in vehicle flow within the city' and thus that 'while cars parked at the park-and-ride sites are themselves no longer contributing towards the congestion externality, traffic flows are being generated elsewhere – for example, flow between car parks and homes from locals at whom the park-and-ride was not targeted but who nevertheless are attempting to commute to the service. This is significant in that while certain cars are removed from the flow, new flows are stimulated net of other individuals, thereby significantly negating the overall impact of the service'.[2]
In Sweden, a tax has been introduced on the benefit of free or cheap parking paid by an employer, in situations in which workers would otherwise have to pay.[3] This tax has reduced the number of workers driving into the inner city, and increased the usage of park and ride areas, especially in Stockholm. The introduction of a congestion tax in Stockholm has further increased the usage of park and ride.
In Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, P+R car parks are established near some of metro stations and railway stations (ca 17 parks near 12 metro stations and 3 train stations, in 2011).[4] These parkings offers low prices and all-day and return (2× 75 min) tickets with integrated fare for public transport system.[5][6]
Park and ride facilities, with dedicated car parks and bus services, began in the 1960s in the UK. Oxford operated the first such scheme, initially with an experimental service operating part-time from a motel on the A34 in the 1960s and then on a full-time basis from 1973. Better Choice Parking first offered an airport park and ride service at London Gatwick Airport in 1978.[7] Oxford now operates park and ride from 5 dedicated car parks around the city.[8] As of 2005, Norwich has the biggest park and ride in the UK, operating from six separate sites around the city.[9]
Some railway stations are promoted as a park and ride facility for a distant town, for instance Liskeard for Looe and Lelant Saltings for St Ives, both in Cornwall, England. These train services are generally less frequent than those of a park and ride bus service. Stations in the UK that are situated outside the main urban area are often suffixed with "parkway", such as Bristol Parkway, Tiverton Parkway, and Didcot Parkway. At Luton Airport Parkway and Southampton Airport Parkway, the stations are located to serve air as well as road passengers.
In the United States, it is common for outlying rail stations to include automobile parking, often hundreds of spaces. Boston, for example, has built several large parking facilities at its commuter rail and metro stations near major highways and large arterial surface roads around the periphery of the city: Alewife, Braintree, Forest Hills, Hyde Park, Quincy Adams, Riverside, Route 128, Wellington, Woburn. The local transit operator, the MBTA, offers almost 46,000 park and ride spaces.
B & R (B + R) is a name for using cycle boxes or racks near public transport terminals, mostly together with P & R car parks. This system can be promoted through integrated fare and tickets with public transport system.[10]
Many railway stations and airports feature an area in which cars can discharge and pick up passengers. These "kiss and ride" facilities allow drivers to stop and wait, instead of the longer-term parking associated with park and ride facilities.
Some high-speed railway stations in Taiwan have signs outside stations reading Kiss and Ride in English, with Chinese characters above the words that read "temporary pick up and drop off zone". Most people in Taiwan have no idea what the colloquialism means.[11]
Deutsche Bahn has announced that it will be changing the English expressions for Kiss and Ride, Service Points and Counters to German ones.[12]
The term first appeared in a January 20, 1956, Associated Press report published in the Los Angeles Times.[13]
Park and ride schemes do not necessarily involve public transport. They can be provided to reduce the number of cars on the road by promoting carpooling and carsharing. Partly because of the concentration of risers, and thus a reduced number of vehicles, these park and ride terminals often have express transit services into the urban area, such as a high-occupancy vehicle lane. The service may only take passengers in one direction in the morning (typically toward a central business district) and in the opposite direction in the evening, with no or a limited number of trips available in the middle of the day. It is often not allowed to park at these locations overnight. Overall, these attributes vary from region to region.
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