Is the curb 80% full or 20% empty? Assessing the impacts of San Francisco’s parking pricing experiment

The city of San Francisco is undertaking a large-scale controlled parking pricing experiment. San Francisco has adopted a performance goal of 60–80% occupancy for its metered parking. The goal represents an heuristic performance measure intended to reduce double parking and cruising for parking, and improve the driver experience; it follows a wave of academic and policy literature that calls for adjusting on-street parking prices to achieve similar occupancy targets. In this paper, the authors evaluate the relationship between occupancy rules and metrics of direct policy interest, such as the probability of finding a parking space and the amount of cruising. The authors show how cruising and arrival rates can be simulated or estimated from hourly occupancy data. Further, the authors evaluate the impacts of the first two years of the San Francisco program, and conclude that rate changes have helped achieve the City’s occupancy goal and reduced cruising by 50%.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2014.02.016
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856414000470
• Record URL:
  • http://utc.ices.cmu.edu/utc/Millard-Ball_Weinberger_Hampshire_2014_Assessing_the_impacts_SFPark.pdf
• 
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/09658564
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Millard-Ball, Adam
  • 0000-0002-2353-8730
  • Weinberger, Rachel R
  • Hampshire, Robert C
• Publication Date: 2014-5

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 76-92
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
  • Volume: 63
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0965-8564
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09658564

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Parking meters; Pricing; Queuing
• Identifier Terms: SFpark
• Geographic Terms: San Francisco (California)
• Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I10: Economics and Administration; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01526725
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 29 2014 10:15AM