Expansion of a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) and its Influence on Modal Split: The Case of Edinburgh

Abstract

This article considers the inter-relationship between on-street parking and choice of mode for journeys to work in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. This city is typical of many in that its centre has significant on-street parking controls but, beyond a radius of 1 to 1 1/2 miles (1.5 to 2.5?km) from the centre, there are no controls and commuter parking on-street is commonplace. The article reviews the relevant literature, and then considers the results of a survey undertaken of Edinburgh city centre employees in order to ascertain their parking habits and likely response to the extension of existing on-street parking controls. The article concludes that the results are transferable to other cities but that the scale of the impacts in each will be related to site specific factors, particularly the demand for residential parking space on-street in areas close to the city centre.     

An agent‐based simulation model to assess the impacts of introducing a shared‐taxi system: an application to Lisbon (Portugal)

This paper presents a new concept of urban shared‐taxi services. The proposed system has a new organisational design and pricing scheme that aims to use the capacity in traditional taxi services in a more efficient way. In this system, a taxi acting in ‘sharing’ mode offers lower prices to its clients, in exchange for them to accept sharing the vehicle with other persons who have compatible trips (time and space). The paper proposes and tests an agent‐based simulation model in which a set of rules for space and time matching between a request of a client and the candidate shared taxis is identified. It considers that the client is only willing to accept a maximum deviation from his or her direct route and establishes an objective function for selecting the best candidate taxi. The function considers the minimum travel time combination of pickup and drop‐off of all the pool of clients sharing each taxi while allowing to establish a policy of bonuses to competing taxis with certain number of occupants. An experiment for the city of Lisbon is presented with the objectives of testing the proposed simulation conceptual model and showing the potential of sharing taxis for improving mobility management in urban areas. Results show that the proposed system may lead to significant fare and travel time savings to passengers, while not jeopardising that much the taxi revenues. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.