Today In Parking Research

Normally big cities feature a substantial number of parking garages where in exchange for money you can put your car. Since these garages are owned by private firms, the general idea is to try to set the price at the level where supply matches demand. But then alongside these garages, you have street parking spaces where the prices are normally dramatically lower. Basic economic theory suggests that this underpricing of parking should lead to shortages and queuing. And empirically?

The literature on car cruising is dominated by theory. We examine cruising for parking using a nation-wide random sample of car trips. We exclude employer-provided and residential parking. We focus on the Netherlands, where levels of on-street and off-street parking prices are locally the same. We demonstrate then that due to this price setting the average cruising time in the Netherlands is only 36 seconds per car trip. Furthermore, we show that cruising is not random. It is more common in (large) cities that receive more car trips, particularly for shopping and leisure activities. Cruising time increases with travel duration as well as with parking duration. Cruising has a distinctive pattern over the day with a peak in the morning, so the order of arrival is essential to parking. Because cruising has a spatial and time component, policies may be considered that reduce cruising time through flexible pricing of parking or improved information about vacant parking spaces.

In other words, yes. If you price on-street parking at the market level, you get fewer shortages and less “cruising” for spaces. On net, this costs would-be street parkers more money, but in exchange, they get to find spaces faster. Even better for drivers, having fewer people circling the block looking for parking spaces eases traffic. And for drivers and non-drivers alike, the market rate pricing generates municipal revenue that can be used to maintain the infrastructure.