Manage morning commute for household travels with parking space constraints

Parking has always been a thorny problem in urban transport systems. Parking availability and parking reservation management may have a significant influence on the travel behavior of household travelers. This paper explores the morning commute for household travels by considering parking space constraint and the parking reservation mechanism in a two-mode transport system. Household travelers depart from home to their children’s school by car or by rail and then go to work alone. For household travelers who drive, some household travelers have reserved parking spaces while other household travelers must compete for public ones on a first-come-first-served (FCFS) basis. When household travelers do not have a parking spot, they use rail transit for their commute. We derive ten equilibrium departure patterns based on the school-work time difference, the number of parking spots and the ratio of reserved parking spots. With these equilibrium departure patterns, we thoroughly discuss the impact of school-work time difference on the total travel cost of auto travelers and parking reservation ratio. It is found that, given the school-work time difference, appropriate parking reservation allocation can minimize the total system travel cost. Then, the system performance, including total system travel cost and total congestion cost, is examined by regulating the parking supply, the parking reservation allocation and the school-work time difference. We found that there is a unique optimal parking supply to minimize the total system travel cost, and appropriate staggering policy can alleviate traffic congestion and thus improves social welfare. Finally, numerical analysis is conducted to verify the findings, and the Pareto frontier for system performance is analyzed. Traffic authorities can select the optimal solution based on the preferences of traffic indicators to develop effective strategies to manage morning commuting of household travels with parking space constraint. The study demonstrates that implementing reasonable staggering policy and efficient parking management can effectively promote efficiency of urban morning commuting systems and reduce social costs for household travelers.