Tools/17

TOOL

Collecting data about parking occupancy

Description

Opponents of street transformation often claim, that there are to little parking possibilities. But is that true? Evidence in Ljubljana showed that the city has rather a problem with how parking space is unevenly occupied. The urban design studio prostorož suggested the following steps to collect data about parking space occupancy.

1. define the area of observation (street / block / neighbourhood)
2. prepare the site plan of all the parking spots you will observe / have access to, regardless of ownership
3. set a hypothesis (e.g. parking is occupied by employees, not generating income for local shops)
4. create an observation plan: check occupancy one Wednesday and Saturday; and granular occupancy of observed parking lots every 2 hours, starting from 5 AM to 12:00 PM
5. graphically present data for example via Q-GIS and interpret results

Unlock-hypothesis

Showing data about the actual parking place distribution can question beliefs about the necessity of parking places in a certain area.

Lock-in Layers

institutional

Lock-in Cluster

Personal and Social Beliefs

Challenges

Slow bureaucratic processes

Link for further information about the tool

-

Link to tool materials

-

Level of effort for application

medium

Skill level needed for application

medium

Suitable spatial context

neighbourhood

Spatial limitation

no

Visualisation

Tool type

Evidence

Toolbox user types

NGOs/ local interest groups, Local administration

Languages

english