Level of Service for Parking Facilities

Abstract

As the number of motor vehicles increasing rapidly, urban parking has become an intolerable problem in major cities in China. Parking facility service evaluations play an important role in urban transportation planning and operation. This paper introduces an LOS (level of service) concept based on a comprehensive parking study in Beijing, China. The LOS methodology is developed by an integrated evaluation model that reflects the user's perception of the quality of service. The method combines four important service variables, namely the ratio of peak-hour demand to capacity, average parking space occupying rate, parking cost, and circulation time, into one single index to quantitatively evaluate a parking facility's performance. The case studies at the end of the paper demonstrate the applicability of the method.