As electric vehicles become more common, finding a parking space in busy urban areas is an increasingly important part of the commuting decision. When parking is scarce, drivers may leave home earlier simply to secure a space, adding extra travel time and intensifying competition during the morning peak.
Against this backdrop, a duo of researchers from Tongji University have developed a mathematical model to examine how electric vehicle commuters respond to limited parking when they can choose between driving directly, charging on the way, or taking public transport. Unlike earlier studies that mainly considered a single commuting corridor, the new model captures competition both among different types of commuters within the same corridor and among commuters travelling from different corridors. The study was published in the Journal of Management Science and Engineering .
“One of the main theoretical finding is that the latest parking ending time for electric vehicle commuters increases strictly with the number of parking spaces available to them,” shares corresponding author Xiaoning Zhang. “This property enables the researchers to calculate the resulting travel equilibrium and to extend the analysis to a many-to-one transportation network.”
The researchers then compared three approaches to managing scarce parking: system-optimum allocation, Pareto-improving allocation, and tradable parking permits.
“Parking scarcity does more than determine whether a driver can find a space. It can change when people depart, how they travel and whether they choose to drive at all,” says co-author Lechen Guan. “Our results suggest that parking permits can be used not only to allocate scarce spaces, but also to reduce inefficient competition for them.”
The duo's numerical experiments show that the system-optimum scheme can substantially improve overall efficiency, while Pareto-improving and tradable permit schemes can achieve outcomes close to the system optimum. “Our findings also highlight a trade-off between efficiency and equity: when parking is scarce, tradable permits can provide comparatively favorable equity outcomes, whereas different allocation schemes become attractive as parking supply increases,” adds Guan.
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Contact author details: Xiaoning Zhang, School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China, cexzhang@tongji.edu.cn
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Journal of Management Science and Engineering
Computational simulation/modeling
Not applicable
Parking permit management in a corridor with electric vehicles considering parking restraint
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.