Rideshare programs and their associated park-and-ride lots in california are administered by the california department of transportation. In the sacramento region, sacramento rideshare operates 38 park-and-ride lots with use ranging from zero to 100%. As a first step toward developing improved site location and lot size selection techniques, use and service areas of existing lots have been analyzed. Lot occupancy was counted on two days in june 1988 and in may 1989. In may 1989, a survey of lot users was also conducted. Highly used lots were found to have the expected desirable characteristics of clearly identifiable commute corridors and relatively high-density service area populations. Many were served by vanpools, and two were usedby commuters traveling from sacramento to work in other cities. Underused lots lack these characteristics, are poorly located relative to other lots, or are located very close to or very far from sacramento. In order to identify service area boundaries, respondents to the may 1989 survey asked about their travel distance to the lot. Overall, 60% of respondents lived within 5 mi of the lot; 71% lived within 7.5 Mi. Some service areas were found to be more compact with up to 79% of respondents coming from within 7.5 Mi; others were very dispersed with as few as 32% of respondents coming from within 7.5 Mi of the lot. Most of the highly used lots draw between 60 and 75% of their users from within 5 mi. Analysis of lot use for service areas in the sacramento region is continuing with the objective of developing a service area index that can be used to predict use of new park-and-ride lots. This paper appears in transportation research recordno. 1321, Rideshare programs: evaluation of effectiveness, trip reduction programs, demand management, and commuter attitudes 1991.
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