Modeling the Use of Parking Lots near Motorways by Commuter Carpools

Abstract

Fostering carpools and higher car occupancy levels in general has become a trend in transport policy. The intelligent use of private-vehicle fleets is regarded as a measure to reduce congestion, fossil energy consumption, and negative external impacts, particularly in densely populated areas. Observations in Germany suggest that the provision of sufficiently large and well-equipped park-and-pool lots near motorway access points, which are common match points on work commuter routes, is a critical success factor of rideshare-oriented policies. Moreover, the empirical results of the study presented here indicate that employees coordinate their car trips for long periods of time. This paper presents a novel approach to generalized demand modeling of such parking lots, specifically in rural areas, coupled with an existing travel demand model. The paper includes a literature review, the evaluation of a comprehensive household survey, and a synopsis of the field studies performed to date. The paper then describes a multiphase computation of parking lot use by cars left after work commuters prearranged their carpools. The distinguishing idea was to model the consideration of carpool parking and passenger collection tours jointly in the choice set formation and the subsequent qualification of choice options of participants in rideshares. The conceptual approach and its implementation were tested in a case study on investment needs for park-and-pool facilities in the German federal state of Thuringia.