Excessive Driving: How Urban Areas Can Reduce Congestion

Much of the air pollution and traffic congestion in urban areas results from drivers cruising around looking for a parking space.

A contributing factor to that cruising is curbside parking that is free or priced far below garage rates.

A research study by Transportation Alternatives in a 15-block area of Manhattan revealed:

• Motorists “cruise” a total of 366,000 miles a year searching for metered parking.
• Drivers cruise on average seven blocks (.37 miles) to find a metered parking space – 14 blocks (.7 miles) at peak times.
• Drivers searching for curbside parking in the survey area generate 325 tons of Carbon Dioxide annually.
• On metered blocks, curb parking is completely occupied up to half the time. Unmetered blocks are completely full up to 75% of the time.

Many cities lack sufficient parking close to downtown areas often because of the large space required for conventional garages.

Automated parking can fit the same number of cars is half the space which opens up numerous opportunities for locating garages throughout downtown areas.

More parking garages close to downtown and equalizing pricing between parking garages and curbside parking can help urban areas reduce the congestion caused by cruising for parking.

Parking facts:

Do you know how many surface parking lots exist in the US?

There are 500 million surface parking lots in the U.S. alone. In some cities, parking lots take up one-third of all land area. (Source: Jared Green in Grist)

Using technology such as automated, robotic parking can drastically reduce the amount of land area needed for parking and free up space for green, open areas for the community.

As read in the Robotoc Parking Systems Inc. Newsletter