Level of Service for Parking Facilities Based on Search Time
Abstract
Level of Service (LOS) is a term used by transportation engineers to identify the quality of service of transportation facilities to the public. The Highway Capacity Manual has yet to provide guidance on LOS analysis for parking facilities. Parking search time has been proposed by several researchers as the indicator for the LOS criteria for parking facilities. This thesis investigated the use of search time for LOS analysis for on street and off-street parking facilities.The analysis of LOS for off-street parking focused on the measurement of parking search time. Three search time measurement methods have been proposed: the license plate matching method, and the video observation method, and the test vehicle method. These three search time measurement methods have been applied to two surface parking lots and a parking garage in case studies.The search time for on-street parking has to be estimated indirectly from the parking occupancy ratio. Although some cities have data to estimate parking occupancy ratio, the relationship between on-street parking search time and occupancy ratio is not well understood. A microscopic traffic simulation tool (VISSIM) has been utilized to investigate four models to generate data to fit equations of search time as a function of occupancy ratio. The proposed LOS analysis procedure for off-street parking, from the computation of occupancy ratio in an analysis area from individual parking space’s payment transaction records, estimation of search time from occupancy ratio, and mapping of search time to LOS grades have been demonstrated using a site in the city of El Paso, TX.
Subject Area
Transportation|Civil engineering
Recommended Citation
Briones, Fernie, "Level of Service for Parking Facilities Based on Search Time" (2021). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI28868225.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI28868225