Negotiable parking rights

Summary of the results of the research carried out by Sareco for DRAST within the framework of PREDIT.

The purpose of the research carried out is to study the interest and acceptability of applying to the field of parking tools inspired by the "negotiable permits" put in place in the fight against air pollution.

Public space can indeed be considered a scarce resource, and parking a form of pollution. Therefore, the use of economic instruments can be justified in order to achieve greater efficiency in distributing the effort to reduce this "pollution."

A system of tradable permits can be considered in areas with high commuting , such as among employees and students, if alternative transportation options to cars exist and are underutilized. Tradable permits encourage the use of public transportation at the expense of car ownership through a transfer—potentially monetary—between drivers and users of public transportation or active transportation modes. Limiting the number of parking issued helps reduce car use. The possibilities for exchanging, reselling, and buying permits introduce a degree of flexibility in implementing policies to reduce parking and car traffic.

However, the operation of this negotiable parking permit system must take into account several significant constraints:

• Regarding the system itself: difficulty in creating a real monetary market on financial stakes of small importance, difficulty in involving users in a predictive and daily management of their travel, need to arrive at a very simple solution to use since it concerns the practice, currently almost daily, of parking, need to place oneself in a closed or at least controlled universe, therefore costly to manage.
• Regarding the implementation of the system: difficulty in adapting to existing parking management methods and coexisting with those in place nearby, difficulty in challenging a parking system whose management is a rather controversial and socially sensitive subject.

The acceptance of the system also depends on what each individual can find beneficial in it:

• The dual objectives of regulating peak traffic and reducing car use are difficult to achieve simultaneously. The local authority aims to decrease parking lot usage, while parking lot operators tend to focus on smoothing out occupancy. The negotiated variable can then be, in the first case, either a "free entry" fee, valid on any day, or in the second case, a "free entry" fee for a specific day. Ideally, systems that require or offer pre-booking allow for more precise, more "negotiable" management.
• Users, who demand simplicity in the system's management, are not necessarily resistant to all new systems. Generally speaking, whether for employees or students, it seems that users are more attached to free parking than to unlimited parking. Negotiable permits are therefore a tool that could allow for a degree of free parking for motorists willing to limit their car use. In areas well-served by public transport where surveys have been conducted, some people already alternate between different modes of transport for their commute. free parking area in the city center revealed that 53% of them had used public transport in the previous two months. Negotiable permits could encourage these less-than-captive users to increase the proportion of their travel time spent using public transport.

In order to achieve a functional and acceptable system, the idea of ​​a "market for tradable parking rights" must, for the time being, given its potential implementation and the reactions gathered, be set aside at the individual level, whether employees or students: it is not applicable because negotiating the "good" that parking represents is unwelcome. On the other hand, the idea of ​​counting the number of days commuted by car for commuters using "permits" can be encouraged, with the aim of reducing traffic. This allows, without adopting an overly strict policy at the outset, for raising awareness that parking is a consumable "good.".

In the context of Employee Travel Plans or Mobility Plans, the problem that is often encountered is controlling parking outside an establishment, which manifests itself en masse in open spaces, especially when the site is not in the controlled city centre.

A system introducing this concept of a "counting" of parking days can be easily implemented and tested at low cost. Commuters would be allocated free parking rights in a regulated zone, but only up to a quota of days per month. Badges ensure compliance with this limit on days driven to work and prevent fraud within the system. New technologies, particularly those related to mobile phones, allow for user-friendly activation of these rights and monitoring by public authorities; these technologies are being developed by numerous operators, especially in the context of remote payment. The economic costs are commensurate with the expected results. Used in this context, these technologies (ICTs) could later lead to the management of rights that can be negotiated between end users.

By moving from the scale of the Company to the District where several companies are juxtaposed, the problem of "negotiable rights" shifts: it is possible to consider that these rights are negotiated in quantities between Companies, with the Transport Organising Authority then acting as the market facilitator.

The concept of "negotiable rights" needs to be reformulated, with regard to allocating permits to companies, which are then responsible for distributing them among their employees.

The organizational framework for this approach would then be Local Mobility Plans or Agreements at the scale of the District in question, rather than the Company Mobility Plan.