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Transportation Policy

Parking Management: Opportunities for Chinese Cities

With rapid economic development and accelerated urbanization, Chinese cities are experiencing a substantial growth in vehicle population and motorized mobility. Yet, vehicle ownership rates are still a fraction of those in developed countries—118 motor vehicles per 1,000 persons in 2015 compared to 748 per 1,000 persons in Germany. Against this background, we expect continued growth of vehicle demand in China, especially in tier 3 and tier 4 cities. The rapidly growing number of motorized vehicles puts high pressure on the cities’ transport systems, while greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollutants, as well as external costs of traffic congestion, are increasing. Neither the provision of additional road infrastructure nor the development of new car technologies can overcome all these challenges. A sustainable solution to the city’s traffic problems can only be achieved by implementing travel demand management (TDM) strategies. Particularly parking management as one of the most effective TDM policies…

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Events

Parking management training in Tianjin and Qingdao

With the rapid growth of vehicle populations, Chinese cities are facing parking challenges. In the past, cities tended to solve parking problems simply by increasing supply, for example, by converting more curb lanes and sidewalks into parking spaces, by subsidizing the construction of municipal parking facilities and by increasing the number of parking spaces required in new development. In recent years, many cities have started to apply a new parking-planning paradigm to enhance efficient parking management. Parking management was seen as an important TDM (Transportation Demand Management) instrument to mitigate urban traffic congestion and to reduce GHG emissions. Against this background, from June 19 to 23, the “Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport” project (CLCT) and the “Sustainable Urban Transport Program” (SUTP) jointly organized a parking management training course for the city of Tianjin and the city of Qingdao. Both cities are facing escalating parking problems and a lack of…

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Urban Transport

Parking Management in Chinese Cities – Three questions to Dr. Paul Barter

As a consequence of rapid urbanisation and motorisation over the last decades, most of China’s major cities are facing an unprecedented growth in private car ownership. This development poses a challenge to the city authorities and planners, as it tremendously impacts on traffic congestion, air quality, road safety, urban space consumption and parking demand in Chinese megacities and metropolitan areas. To address these problems, cities are carrying out several different urban transport policies such as car ownership restrictions and driving bans for private vehicles. Nevertheless, most cities underestimate the positive effect of a well-managed on-street parking system within the cityscapes. GIZ China’s Sustainable Transport Programme had the opportunity to interview Dr. Paul Barter – a renowned researcher, policy advisor and trainer at Reinventing Transport and adjunct professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Dr. Barter has over 20 years of research experience in urban…

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Urban Transport

Policy Evaluation – The Impact of Parking Management in Shenzhen

Already since 2013 GIZ, the Shenzhen Urban Transport Planning Center (SZUTPC) and Shenzhen Municipal Commission of Transport (SZMCT) jointly worked on reforming parking pricing in Shenzhen. International parking expert Paul Barter supported local transport planners to evaluate the effects of the parking price policy and assisted the project team in improving the actual policy design. On-street parking management has been implemented in four pilot zones in the city center of Shenzhen since July 2014. After an operation period of several months, Shenzhen Urban Transport Planning Center (SUTPC) conducted an evaluation on impacts of the on-street parking management policy in Futian CBD, Nanshan CBD, Tianbei and Zhuzilin and published key findings of the evaluation report on the social media platform Wechat and local newspaper Shenzhen online. Right before the evaluation started, four areas adjacent to the pilot zones with similar land use and parking problems have been identified as referential areas…

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Events

Urban Transport Development Forum – Day 1 – Sustainable Urban Transport Policy

Learning from international experience in urban transport policy and discussing their relevance for Chinese cities was the main topic of the Urban Transport Development Forum in Beijing. The forum was organised by the Chinese Ministry of Transport, the World Bank and GIZ. The first day on 10th March 2015 focussed on the question how sustainable urban transport policy can be implemented successfully. Dr. Friedemann Kunst (former Head of Transportation Department, Berlin State Senate) presented Berlin’s strategic approach to urban transport planning. He stressed that transport policy in Germany has come a long way: “Since the late 1990s cities in Germany have realised that it is impossible to combine the ideas of a car-friendly city and a city that is attractive and resource-efficient.” The turnaround, with an increase in environmental friendly transport modes was only possible through a participatory planning process that managed to create a unique commitment to sustainable transport…

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Events

Urban Transport Development Forum – Day 2 – Parking Management Policy and Practice

Day two of the Urban Transport Development Forum in Beijing was dedicated to the discussion around parking management policies and practices. The two day forum on March 10-11 2015 was organised by the Chinese Ministry of Transport with support of the World Bank and GIZ. All presentations from the workshop can be downloaded following the links at the bottom of the article. Paul Barter, Professor for Public Policy at the Singapore University discussed the pricing, enforcement and zoning of on street parking management. To be effective, parking management policies should achieve an adequate saturation level and not concentrate on revenue making. The price level should be set at a level to achieve an occupancy rate of about 70-90% at all times. Thereby, searching for parking traffic can be reduced which reduces congestion and improves road safety for car drivers but more importantly for pedestrians and cyclist. 30% of peak hour…

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Events

GIZ Workshop on “The Integration of Carsharing in Parking Management in China”

Under participation of Chinese city representatives, researchers and carsharing providers, GIZ organized a workshop on “The Integration of Carsharing in Parking Management in China” on March 9, 2014. The workshop took place prior to the Urban Transport Development Forum at the Chinese Ministry of Transport, where parking management in Chinese cities was one of the focal subjects to be discussed. As parking challenges can heavily differ among different types of carsharing, the workshop participants separated in breakout groups and discussed specific requirements of station-based as well as free-floating carsharing systems. While the carsharing operators outlined their perspective on parking in Chinese cities, it became clear that the missing unification of parking responsibilities as well as poor parking management can have a crucial impact on the feasibility and development of carsharing services. Demand-based pricing of on-street parking and enforcement of illegal parking could help to reduce the parking pressure in cities…

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Urban Transport

Parking in Chinese Cities: From Congestion Challenge to Sustainable Transport Solution

Car owners all over the world know the frustration that parking can cause, but in China where illegal parking is common this frustration extends to other transport users as cars take over sidewalks, pedestrian squares, bike lanes, and even bus stops. With the number of private vehicles growing from less than 10 million in 2002 to over 88 million in 2012, the number of drivers and demand for good parking spaces continue to grow. In China parking management systems have been unable to keep up, leading to chaotic parking situations which cause congestion, increase air pollution and decrease the economic efficiency of the city. Improving the parking management system is a challenging task that Chinese cities have little experience with and an area where GIZ is able to offer its expertise. Working with Beijing and Shenzhen, GIZ has helped to address the short term need for available parking spaces to…

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Transportation Policy

New Parking Management Policy in Shenzhen on the way  

Uncontrolled and illegal parking is facing increasing discomfort by local authorities in the city of Shenzhen. An annually rising car ownership of 15%, increasing congestion, and an average speed of 26 km/h on inner urban streets in 2013 affirmed Shenzhen Municipal Commission of Transport to take action. To “clean up” Shenzhen’s roads and not further reduce capacity of streets local authorities announced the introduction of parking management policy consisting of two parts: an on-street and an off-street parking fee. The new parking policy will become effective on July 1st, 2014. For the first implementation phase four pilot areas were selected representing a mix of residential, business and commercial areas – so called Type 1 Areas. a) In a first step, an on-street parking fee of 5 CNY for the first 30 minutes and an additionally 10 CNY for every following 30 minutes will be levied during most hours of the…

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