This paper outlines recent work aiming to develop an efficient centralised parking management, control and information system. The paper identifies briefly the elements of management and control and the methods to predict in short term parking demand and its spatial and temporal characteristics, the spatial and technical characteristics and constraints of parking supply, as well as the methodological requirements and constraints of applying various forms of control. Achieving optimal supply, management and control requires the development of a system that functions in co-ordination with the overall system that manages traffic demand. Such a system collects link flow data through loop detectors, processes (synthesises and projects) demand, and uses and disseminates relevant information to users. The basic elements of the system as reported in this paper are: (i) the traffic monitoring model which keeps track of temporal changes in traffic and parking space availability; (ii) a sub-model exhibiting a predictive power extending beyond the immediate or local areas of specific parking supplies and giving system-wide estimates of parking availability in order to provide efficient guidance to drivers; (iii) a pattern recognition system; and (iv) a system for parking information consisting of: (a) software, i.e. techniques for optimally defining the distribution of information, (b) hardware, i.e. equipment and facilities for gathering data and disseminating information. The above elements are discussed in the context set out by the DRIVE project PARCMAN which will specify a prototype within the overall development of road transport informatics (RTI) technology and will also set-up and conduct a demonstration programme to test the prototype.
Abstract