Urban Parking

Parking plays an essential role in the functioning of the city and because of the space it occupies helps shape the urban landscape. By acting as a gateway effect it has a significant impact on accessibility to different urban activities and by acting as a lever it influences users' modal choice decisions and the distribution of traffic flows. For these reasons parking is seen as an essential tool for more sustainable urban development. Public authorities are fully aware of this and place it at the forefront of their local mobility strategies. Parking management is inherently complex as it lies at the crossroads of numerous fields of intervention and involves often ambivalent issues and objectives. This complexity also stems from the very nature of the parking system: the diversity and multiplicity of the types of parking spaces available on a territory the spatial and temporal variability of demand requirements and the plurality of the players involved.