At present HGV parking facilities on national motorways do not meet the demand. Besides conventional measures like new construction, layout modification or motorway service area expansion, telematics systems are an alternative to increase the parking capacity. Special parking strategies allow HGVs utilizing available space optimally, thus increasing capacity. So far two telematics-controlled strategies have been established: 'Queued parking' (Telematics Controlled Parking for Trucks) means all drivers enter their planned departure time at a terminal. Based on the input and the vehicle length the strategy will assign vacant parking space. 'Compact parking' means arriving drivers choose the parking row at which dynamic displays indicate the departure time that suits best. Experience made so far has revealed that special parking strategies generally seem to be an appropriate means to increase the capacity of motorway service areas. The objective of the study is to develop a method to assess the economic efficiency of special parking strategies compared to conventional approaches. For that purpose an assessment method and a simple calculation tool have been developed. The tool facilitates assessing cost and benefit components of special parking strategies and comparing them with the conventional alternatives of new construction or expansion. The developed assessment method forms the basis of the calculation tool based on a spreadsheet program. The calculation tool can be applied by technical staff familiar with planning and project specifics. It provides for a formalized treatment and representation of cost accounting and benefit quantification. The tool was evaluated by means of exemplary applications. (Author/publisher)
Abstract